


Look Alive, Sunshine

by twistedservice



Series: The Foregone [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Death Valley Shenanigans, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Just General Spook, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Multi, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Near Death Experiences, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:22:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 77,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25605028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedservice/pseuds/twistedservice
Summary: The facts of life are simple: you are what you are, and you cannot run from it.So why are you trying?
Series: The Foregone [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647778
Kudos: 1





	1. The Beginning (Or The End?)

“i want to discover myself.  
i want to destroy myself.  
i want to be a secret that nobody but i can ruin.”  
―Salma Deera, Letters From Medea

**Saturday, July 1st.  
** **Fourteen days after.**

Oakland has a decidedly different air than San Francisco.

It seemed obvious, when you thought about it. It was especially evident now. Oakland was still alive and bustling even in the dead of night, two hours past midnight. People still teeming about the streets, cars zooming this way and that, too many of them honking. People hanging over balconies, people crawling out of bars they wouldn't remember entering in the morning.

San Francisco was busier, larger, more in your face in every other respect, but Oakland seemed more complicated in ways that were in-explainable.

Not that Soran had anything against Oakland, really. There was just a reason he had crossed the bridge and settled elsewhere.

At least with the busyness of Oakland, all of them ignoring the shield and impending doom hovering somewhere to their left, no one feels the innate urge to look at them the way everyone back home did. It's another hike to the bus depot, just over an hour, but they're on the receiving end of no odd looks. No one knows them here, and no one has any reason to.

It's been well suspected that Oakland has more accepting communities for the supernatural. Soran apparently just doesn't like making things easy for himself.

None of them do. They don't know the easy things. He can rattle all of them off, and every single one of them has done almost the exact opposite. He should have kept his head down, ignored all of this. Left them all in the dust. In fact, outside of Ria, that's what they all should have done. Icarus should have realized the danger he was in associating with them all and gone looking for a normal life. Tarquin should have gone back into hiding, forming a new name and a new life somewhere in the dark.

He can't even begin to explain Emmi outside of the fact that she shouldn't be here, point blank. All she's done is quietly seethe, eyes scanning the perimeter every thirty seconds or so.

An exhausting task, he knows. He's doing it too. Their eyes keep meeting somewhere in the middle, no comments necessary shared between the two of them.

Outside, at least, Tarquin was doing it too, but the second they settle in the bus depot everyone seems to deflate. He heads off to buy five tickets, a truly unnecessary number, and everyone else scatters. Emmi's in one row, eyes fixated on the main door, and Tarquin is in the seat directly behind her, looking but not really seeing the row of buses coming and going from the back lot. Ria is staring into the nearest vending machine like it's a black hole. Considering she hasn't asked for money and doesn't need to even eat in the first place, he's certainly not about to offer.

They've got about forty minutes to wait for the next bus; sitting for an hour and then another nine, easy, after that, steers him clear away from taking a seat now.

"You might want to go check on him," Emmi says casually as he shuffles past, trying to move as slow as possible. The depot isn't very big, and he's got forty minutes to kill. "I think he might have drowned in the sink."

"Don't think he would appreciate a drowning joke."

"Sounds like a him sort of problem to me." She shrugs, slumping deeper into the seat to stretch a leg out, nearly tripping him. "Go buy me a snack."

"Go buy yourself a snack," he fires back. "I just bought your bus ticket." He flicks it at her and she misses swiping it out of the air by a mile, instead watching it flutter down to the floor, eyes full of disdain.

"Ah, yes," she says unimpressed. "Five ten dollar bus tickets. How ever will you survive?"

Tarquin smiles, or at least it looks like he does, which is a vast improvement on how sour his face has looked since they left. You'd think Ria dragged him by his ankles by the look of him.

He keeps the rest of the tickets shoved in his wallet, makes sure Emmi at least scoops hers back up, and continues on his merry way. Moving this slow is not something that sits well with him, but it makes the most sense. There's no way someone could have followed them out of the shield, but anyone suspicious on either side wouldn't have spent an hour following them on foot. A bus trip is just the last step to make sure that they're in the clear.

He makes his way to the pamphlet counter at the end of the row they've claimed. All sorts of wild colors and fonts spread out in front of him, advertising places with the most fun, the most excitement.

If only they were going to be getting any of that. Soran isn't so optimistic.

There's only one pamphlet about Death Valley, at the very bottom. Just general facts, really, and a map that opens up in the back. He only opens up the first few flaps before he closes it, unwilling to risk it never closing again.

An arm winds around his waist. "We should go to Vegas," Icarus mumbles into the back of his shoulder, reaching for one of the pamphlets at the very top of the stand.

"'Cause that's totally where it is."

"It could be," he suggests, shaking his hand vigorously to open it. "Maybe it's at the top of the Luxor. You never know."

"Sure don't," he mutters. Oh, how he wishes he did. All of this would be so much easier if he did. Anyone, for that matter. Get in, get out, come back and fix whatever fucking mess there is by the time they return. At least if they knew things might not be so disastrous when they do.

"I don't... think I've ever been," Icarus says. He looks more tired than perplexed. It's more energy to figure it out than it's worth.

"We'll go, one day."

"Really?"

"Why not?"

He's been. More times than he'd like to, really. Vegas isn't all it's chalked up to be.

They need something to do after all of this, though. So long as they have an after.

Icarus seems entirely content with where he is. Soran takes the pamphlet from his limp hand and shoves it back into the stand, cramming his own deep down into his pocket. There's no one around or maybe he'd care; it's only the lady behind the desk, who looks bored to fucking tears, and she couldn't care less, certainly, about Icarus clinging to his back like an over-tired koala.

It's weird, though. He doesn't really want to move. Has to, eventually.

Icarus is so warm most of the time that he never wants to.

Emmi looks up, finally. She snorts, but there's no mirth behind it. "You two are disgusting."

Icarus gives her the finger, and then wraps that arm around him too when he's done. They're never getting on the bus at this rate; the two of them fitted together like this won't even manage their way through the door.

He lets him though, for now. He's been letting him a lot lately, trying to get used to it, trying to allow himself something that he never thought he deserved, Maybe that's still the truth, in some universe or other, but he's trying.

It's good, too. He knows this because of the way Emmi keeps checking her phone, never typing out the start to a conversation, or even a response. She just lost something, a specific something that Soran currently has, and it's eating away at her insides. She’s not just seething - she’s mourning, too.

He’s forgotten what that expression looks like on his own face, but it’s easily recognizable on just about anyone else's.

Mourning is hard. He doesn’t miss it, doesn't have any desire to feel it.

If that’s all he can manage to stay away from, at the end of the day, then he can live with that.

―

Icarus is half-asleep when the bus rolls up.

Soran left him in the cold, unforgiving plastic of the chairs bolted to the walls, and he’s been watching him non-discreetly shove snacks into his bag from the vending machine for the better part of two or three minutes by now.

If the chair wasn’t so uncomfortable, he’d be out. Would have been out within seconds of sitting down.

He's tired. More tired than he is usually. He's had more than his fair share of sleepless nights, tossing and turning until the sun came up. Maybe the walk has something to do with it - two hours on his feet getting dragged through two different cities is not exactly his definition of a fun night out.

Still, though, nobody else looks quite so tired as him.

His theory is quickly disproven by the new arrivals - a totally normal looking young couple, but the girl has circles under his eyes even darker than his. Icarus is sure he's not so much as showing the visible signs as he's just feeling him. She looks like she's been through hell and back.

They purchase tickets. Sit not so far away. The girl almost immediately goes to sleep on the guy's shoulder. He spends most of his time trying to lean over just far enough to see the tickets poking out of the man's wallet. He's not positive, but he thinks they say San Jose, too.

So they won't be alone. At this hour he almost expected to be.

He's so tired it's hard to focus on them for long, but Emmi, it seems, is having difficulty looking away. Even Tarquin keeps peering over his shoulder at them, less frequently, but enough to openly showcase his displeasure at the thought of anyone being so close to them.

Maybe it's bad that he's not more worried. He nudges the bag Soran left at his feet directly between them, half-under the row of chairs. Both the gun and sword are in there; probably not the thing he should be leaving around with strangers in close proximity.

Totally normal strangers, he may add. They're not going to do anything.

Everyone's just acting like they are.

Soran sits down next to him with a thud that rattles the entire row of seats. Everyone looks at him, including the man, but there's nothing behind his gaze that rouses any suspicion in Icarus.

Maybe he's just the token delusional one. Everyone is looking at the guy like he's going to jump up and slit someone's throat any minute now. The paranoia is spreading like a disease, and it looks like he's the only one who doesn't currently have it.

The girl had the right idea, honestly. She found a pillow, closed her eyes, and ignored the world around her. Icarus would do the same if Soran wasn't moving around like a madman, trying and halfway failing to shove everything he collected from the vending machine into his backpack without squashing it all.

"Give me some of those," he demands. Soran hands him an entire armful of God only knows what - he locates a bag of chips that he at least recognizes, finally, and tears them open. The crinkles spread throughout the room as if amplified by a loudspeaker.

There's not a soul that doesn't look at him. He hurriedly shoves a chip in his mouth to get out of apologizing.

"Those weren't for  _ now _ ,” Soran hisses, and tries to snatch the bag back. Icarus nearly tips out of the chair altogether to keep possession of the bag, all for Emmi to snatch it out of his hand when he leans halfway out into the aisle in his frantic quest. When she reaches back to return the bag to him, there's hardly anything left aside from what she's tipped into her hand.

Soran drags the rest of the bags back into his lap. Icarus smiles, offers a chip out to him, and then shoves it into his own mouth the second it looks as if he's about to take it.

"You're the worst," Soran informs him. More crinkling, then, as he demolishes almost the entirety of the bags whilst he puts them away.

So much for their snacks.

Icarus works his way methodically through the rest of the chips while he watches the bus pull into place outside the sliding doors. The couple to his left is the first to move, ambling slowly to wait in a non-existent line. He finishes the chips, allows Soran to steal the last one even though he was _ saving it _ , and only then does he haul himself to his feet to follow.

They're certainly a group. Rag-tag, made of little sense, but it's what they've got. He can't help but marvel at how strange it all looks as they file on one by one. Soran adamantly refuses to hand over the bag containing all of their weapons to be stored underneath, and Tarquin holds onto his own bag even tighter, clutching it awkwardly against his chest. It doesn't look like the bus driver is in the mood to deal with it at this time of night; it slides with little fanfare save for a slightly perturbed look.

The couple has claimed a row halfway back, but Emmi makes a straight-away for the very back row, left side, and throws herself into it. Soran drops his bag into the one across from it, where clearly no one else will be able to get to it, and then holds out an arm when Icarus goes to sit.

"If you think you're getting the window, you're insane."

"Why not?"

"Because I know for a fact you're going to try and sleep on me. You don't get me and the window. Pick."

Behind them, Emmi snickers. Oh, he's serious. Ria and Tarquin both sit down without argument in front of her, leaving them the other side. He could just take a whole row to himself before them all, but...

He knows what the option is, and waits not so patiently while Soran settles next to the window. He doesn't even look triumphant about his success. It's another little thing they're growing around, like normal couples do. Nowhere close to the one they're sharing a bus with, that's for sure, but an effort is better than nothing.

Much to Icarus' credit, he tries. He makes it as far as the bus pulling out of the lot, and then the rumble underneath him begins to make his eyelids droop once again. He leans back into the seat and tries to stay there, but his back is already protesting it.

His back often protests his actions.

Soran holds an arm out, finally, having watching him shift and squirm around for several minutes as they finally hit the road. He leans into his side, lays his head on Soran's shoulder. It's cold too with the air conditioner blasting above them. The window was almost never an option.

"You knew what I was going to pick," he mumbles. It's just making it too easy. If Icarus lasts two more minutes, he'll be shocked.

"Sure did," Soran replies. "Stage five clinger."

"Rude."

He doesn't even know if Soran will sleep. Won't be awake to find out, either. It's clearly hit him harder than everyone else. He feels off, somewhere. Weirder than he usually does. His stomach is always faintly rolling these days, an uneasy pit in the center of his gut that just doesn't go away.

There's a lot going on - he's not the only one that feels that way.

"Wake me up when we get there," he murmurs. 

He has an hour, desperately needs all of it, and is asleep before they hit the next block.

―

Emmi is longing for too many things.

Her bed, for one. Her bed, and Winnie asleep next to her, and the background bustle of someone always inevitably awake in the apartment around them. Hell, she's even starting to miss Nic and his weird, dead eyes.

And then, of course, she starts to feel bad. She said she was going to help fix him... whatever that entails. At least help stitch him up.

Maybe Mal will do it, maybe he won't. Will anyone, if she's not there?

She's also longing deeply for sleep, currently, and wants to punch Icarus more and more by the second. He's asleep the entire ride to San Jose, meaning she's wanted to punch him just shy of four thousand times by the time the lights of the city start to twinkle over them once again.

Sleep would just be better because it would involve a complete and total lack of anything. No thinking, no worrying, no deep, unsettling regret. Just blissful darkness.

Normally Emmi despises being in the dark. It's what's gotten her into most of the trouble she's encountered in her life. Right now, it's all she wishes for.

She supposes all of this Death Valley shit is close enough. They have no clue what they're looking for. No clue what they're even doing, really. She can see it already - the five of them are going to do repeated circles around a National Park that just so happens to also be a blisteringly hot desert - in July, no less. Her predictions are as follows: they never find whatever Ria is looking for, one of them, at least, drops dead from heat-stroke and Emmi takes off running immediately after rather than face the prospect of returning home and trying to explain that to Myra, or anyone for that matter.

She's not going home anyway, is she? She told Arwen as much.

Emmi misses her more than she thought she was capable of missing anyone. The human body shouldn't be able to long for something else this deeply. How can one person stand so much pain like this, especially if it's not physical?

Physically, Emmi can deal with just about anything.

She never wanted this, however.

Part of the reason sleep consistently evades her is her phone, charging in the port between Tarquin and Ria's seats in front of her. The notification light flashes constantly, every different color it could possibly be. A text message. A missed call. A voicemail. Every single way that Arwen could be trying to contact her, and every single one of them failing. She has no idea that Emmi has been gone only a few short hours. She has no idea about any of this.

That's the biggest problem with longing. It makes you do things you don't want to, things against the very definition of your existence.

It's best for them, and for Winnie most of all, if she stays away. Maybe they do find this thing they're looking for - she'll make sure they get back into the city, and then what?

Does she leave for good?

She might just have to cross that bridge when she gets to it.

She shoves her phone deep into her pocket when they finally step off the bus at some god-awful time in the morning. The car rental building just outside of the depot isn't even open, keys and receipts left with the clerk behind the main ticket desk. They're collected easy enough.

Emmi could leave right now if she wanted to. Get a car herself and just drive. She could walk to the airport, even.

Letting go of that is just too hard. Not yet, she thinks. Just not yet.

She can't see the bridge yet, anyway.

There's no telling who's in charge of them, if anyone is, but there's a consensus to wander and stretch their legs while Soran goes to retrieve the car.

Her phone buzzes again in her third time wandering past the bathroom. Emmi has no restraint. The notification color for a text is flashing when she pulls it out, and the screen illuminates on a single message.

**winnie:** you know I love you, right?

Right back to the longing, again.

"What's with the arm?"

Emmi jolts and nearly pitches her phone halfway across the depot. Ria walks out of the bathroom adjacent and stares. There's a man just behind her, in that odd stage where she can't tell if he's older or younger. Maybe even more sleep-deprived than her, though. That's always a good sign.

She has no real ability to tell, but he seems human. She hopes he is.

"Excuse me?" she asks.

"The arm," he repeats. "What is that, a birth defect or something?"

"None of your business," she tries, but that doesn't seem to deter him in the slightest. For a random man in the middle of the night, he sure is persistent. She's alone. Looks tired.

There's a reason so many men died at her hand before.

Ria, behind them, looks as if she wants to creep closer, and finally settles on fleeing for the parking lot. For the best, really. The man is twice the size of her - Emmi, at least, could give him a solid decking and then some, but there's no way Ria would be able to do anything.

There's no reason for it, anyway. He's just a regular old, invasive creep. Same as most of them.

He shrugs, hands stuffed in his pockets. "Just wondering. You know, you're a really pretty girl, but―"

"I know," she interrupts. "Fuck you."

He looks flabbergasted. Maybe he's drunk and thought this would turn out better than he expected. Maybe he just fits the bill. Either way, he's going to die if he doesn't get away from her sooner rather than later. Maybe it's the reminder that she could kill him that makes her nauseous. Maybe it's him prying about her missing forearm as if he has any right. People she's known for months haven't even yet gained that privilege.

"Emmi!"

The man turns on his feet. Soran is at the door, the only one, but the only one really necessary. It’s enough to sake the man out of his intentions, and her out of the fog.

There’s her break.

Emmi barely resists the urge to sprint through the entire depot at him, and nearly collides with the automatic doors when they don’t let her out quick enough. The man is gone, when she turns around. Just another one of the not so good ones.

“Want me to kill him?” Soran asks.

“Wouldn’t be mad,” she responds. He nods, thoughtfully. Probably thinking up some gruesome manner or other. She skirts around him to the car, making her way to the open trunk. It’s just her they’re waiting on. Ria ran for them for a reason. She couldn’t have done anything, but someone else did the second Ria thought to get them.

At least someone has her back. They all do, really. Someone still does back home, too, despite her initial showing of anger. Emmi drops her bags in the trunk and slams the hatch shut, but stares down at the text again before she joins the others in the SUV.

_ You know I love you, right? _

Emmi doesn’t hesitate. She can’t allow herself to. She types it out faster than anything else before in her life, those four words.  _ I love you too. _

She hits send. Turns her phone off immediately after. Clambers into the car after the rest of them.

And then she leaves it all behind.

―

The sun is climbing steadily into the sky when Ria opens her eyes.

It was still dark when Tarquin had offered to take the middle, for a while, so that she could try and get some rest. She remembers the switch, troublesome and complicated.

She doesn’t remember much after that.

She keeps herself still for some time, allowing everything inside the car and out it alike to swim back into focus. Better not to bring too much attention to herself just yet. She's not awake enough for the questions. She is wildly uncomfortable, though, and there's a crick in the side of her neck that doesn't go away even when she tries to stretch it out. At least this feeling is familiar. You never could sleep comfortably up there.

"We just got to the park a few minutes ago," Tarquin murmurs. "An hour, maybe. Or at least that's what I've been told."

His voice is quiet, unobtrusive. The whole car is in much the same state. He's still in the middle seat, no complaints to be heard. It's him she can feel pressed into her right hip.

"This desert enough for you?" he continues. It doesn't even sound like anyone else has paid any mind to her being awake.

Ria stares out the window, nodding. It's huge, vast, all shades of brown and golden-orange contained in one place. The sky's the bluest she's ever seen it, not a cloud in the sky. In the distance ragged mountains rise up into it, uneven all the way through. There's no water in sight, hardly any vegetation on the ground except for sparse, dried-up bushes.

The window is hot to the touch. She can't imagine what it feels like outside just by the look of it alone.

"Are we there yet?" Emmi asks. She throws a leg over Tarquin and nearly into Ria, the only reason she even sees it, to drive her foot into the back of Soran's seat, sending it rocking about wildly. 

Someone's realized she's awake, clearly, and there goes the silence. Soran mutters something under his breath. Icarus reaches back to swat at her.

It feels like she's not the youngest one trapped in this car.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Tarquin asks. Ria finally turns her head to the rest of the car, trying to ignore what's lying outside of it. It's overwhelming to look at.

How are they supposed to find it in this?

Like she said, it's best not to think about it. She's not required to look right this second, and she's certainly not finding anything from the car. Best to wait until they're stopped and settled to think of a game-plan.

If they can even think of one.

"Don't ask," Icarus answers. "I regretted it immediately."

"Reassuring," Emmi says, enthused. "Tell me."

"I said―"

"I know what you said!"

"Listen," Soran says slowly. "It's not my fault. It's the dead of fucking Summer, and impromptu on top of that. In a shocking twist no one wants to be camping in this hell-fire weather. It's a miracle I found anywhere with open reservations, let alone for an undetermined amount of time."

"Reassuring," Emmi repeats.

"We're all going to die, aren't we?" Tarquin asks. He doesn't sound the least bit disturbed. The way they're talking, it sounds like that might be a realistic possibility.

"In a  _ shocking twist _ , Soran manages to find the only hotel in a thousand mile radius run by an axe murderer," Emmi says, looking quite pleased with herself. It's him this time that reaches back in an attempt to hit her, and the car swerves across both lanes three times over before he turns back to the wheel again.

She's evidently the only one concerned.

"It's not run by an axe murderer," he says, clearly irritated. "It's just... a little bit haunted."

"Yeah." Icarus snorts. "A  _ little bit _ ."

"Shut up."

"Alright, pop quiz everyone," Emmi says. "What do you do if you see a ghost?"

"Run," Icarus suggests. "Fast."

"Punch it," Soran says. Ria hears Emmi sigh all the way across the back row.

"Just wait until it goes away?" Tarquin asks, as if that seems to be the most obvious answer. Not the best one she's heard, if she's being honest with herself. She's not sure she could stand still with something's malevolent presence hanging in the air around her.

"Cry," Ria finally says, under her breath. Tarquin smiles.

With all of these options, Ria wouldn't be surprised to see them all happen, even all at once. With this group, it's difficult to tell. It's no wonder Emmi looks so exasperated. She probably misses the normalcy of home compared to all of them.

The thunk of Emmi's head hitting the window is the loudest thing she's heard in the past hour. "You can't just punch a ghost," she insists. "At least I don't think you can."

"Watch me," Soran fires back. Ria has had to see a lot of unpleasant things recently, and had to imagine even more, but somehow that image is one of the least disturbing of them all. Soran will certainly try. She wouldn't be surprised to see him succeed either. At this point in her rather short life, she's witnessed odder things.

It's the only word she's said this far, but it feels like enough. Wherever Soran has them ending up, they have no choice in it now. It's that or camping, like he said. Ria doesn't think that would go over well.

She never thought she would say this, but maybe haunted is better.

Whatever that even entails.

Right now, it's best for her to stay quiet. Over the next two minutes there are at least a dozen more complaints about hauntings, or ghosts, or dying in general. Soran finally succeeds in hitting Emmi, though she doesn't see where. Tarquin, to his credit, is clearly taking the most abuse being stuck in the middle. She'll have to thank him for that later.

It all culminates in Emmi detaching her seat-belt so she can climb halfway into the front seat, by the looks of it. A fight ensues as three different sets of hands go for the volume dial and the buttons to change the station.

"Listen, if you're going to get me killed, you need to let me have my 70's jam session before then!" Emmi insists.

"I need to do no such thing."

"Please?" she begs. "Not even Highway to Hell? So fitting, though."

"Definitely not that."

"Bohemian Rhapsody? Dancing Queen? Tiny Dancer?"

"None of the above."

"... Killing Me Softly?" Emmi suggests, finally.

"I'm going to kill you softly in a second."

Icarus snorts. Even Tarquin starts laughing, trying to keep the noise contained under his breath when Emmi whirls on him. Ria finds herself smiling at the absurdity of it all, in the middle of an even worse situation. If this is how it goes, even if things don't work out the way they plan, things could always be worse.

At least Ria thinks they could be.

She’ll find out eventually, one way or another. They always do.

―

“Oh,” Emmi says, face practically flattened to the window. “We really are all going to die.”

“I wasn’t joking when I said it,” Tarquin points out. Emmi makes a truly horrified face out the window, as if this is the worst thing she’s ever laid eyes on.

Tarquin knows for a fact that it isn’t.

The hotel, though… well, it’s certainly up there, to say the very least. Ten seconds down the road, you couldn't tell there was anything there at all. They had passed a wasteland of abandoned buildings and a few broken down trailers laid out haphazardly in the grass, rusted all the way through, and around the next bend there it was.

It's very long, white as bone, lying almost perfectly in the shadow of the mountain beyond it. The main part of the hotel, it appears, branches off at both ends to form a rough, square-shaped horseshoe. Most of the pavement is cracked and sprouting weeds. Even the trees look like they're fighting against life itself, as if death would be better than existing out here.

Soran pulls the car towards the middle of the main building, by-passing the first end. It's the tallest portion of the building, but not by much, and has 'AMARGOSA OPERA HOUSE' in thick, black and white letters over the main double doors.

Tarquin does even want to know what that's about, frankly.

"Stay here," Soran instructs. Tarquin catches a brief glimpse as he heads into what is presumably the lobby - garishly green carpet, a set of ancient couches, odd murals on the walls.

"Fuck me," Emmi says under her breath, and then gets out.

So much for that.

He does as well, if only because Icarus is already moving, too, and he can't take blame for it with two people ahead of him. His legs are beyond cramped for sitting so long. They stopped not long ago, to refill the gas and stretch, but it wasn't nearly enough. Frankly, he never wants to get back in that car ever again unless it’s to get the hell out of here, whenever that may be. Never, probably.

It's not going to happen. The plan is a loose, jumbled mess in his head, but he gets the gist of it. Unless the thing they're looking for is magically here, their next however many days are going to be filled with day trips to every possible location they can access looking for it.

It's no nine hour drive, but Tarquin doesn't imagine it's going to be any more fun.

Soran returns quickly, two identical sets of actual keys dangling from his fingers instead of the cards they've become used to seeing. He should have expected as much from the sight of it.

Both rooms are all the way at the opposite end from where they pulled it, right at the horseshoe's second juncture. He's the only one paying any sort of attention when Soran tosses him a set of keys, and he has to drop his bag in the dirt to avoid losing him.

"It's two beds," he says. "If any of you have a problem sharing, get another room or go home."

Emmi sticks her tongue out at him. Tarquin doesn't think there's any room to complain, when just about thirty-six hours ago apparently only three of them were supposed to be here. The second room likely wasn't even part of the plan until now, and it's only Soran's unwillingness to cram all five of them into a room that's getting them anywhere at all.

Emmi tugs the keys out of his hand, leaving him the last unfortunate soul in the blistering parking lot. Even the wind is insufferable, stirring up dust and grime into his face. He holds up a hand and it slows, some, but he can't tell if the weak breeze makes it better or worse.

It's slightly better inside, at least. Air conditioned, even if the units are attached to all of the windows and chugging away like they're about to explode.

The good ends there.

The halls are claustrophobic, walls just as white as the outside and pressing in on all sides like they're about to collapse inward. There are portraits, illuminated by the odd, hanging yellow lights - they're not frames, though, but painted onto the walls as if it was someone's best attempt at livening the place up. He looks down. The carpet is red, like blood, all the way in either direction.

There's no getting out of it - it feels wrong. And haunted was a vast underestimation.

He can hear them all chattering down the hall outside their rooms, and more voices the opposite way despite not being able to see anyone, but there are other things. Creaks all along the floor when he takes a step forward, the rustle of wind that appears to be coming from nowhere at all. It feels stronger again, even though he slowed it some.

Human or not, no one should be in here.

"It feels bad in here," Ria says quietly, and he flinches. He hadn't even noticed her creep back up to him, arms wrapped tight around herself. She shivers despite the heat.

He's not the only one whose hair is standing up on the back of their neck. And if even  _ she  _ can tell...

"Sure does," he agrees. They're not going anywhere until tomorrow, and Tarquin doesn't even want to be here that long. It's no wonder this was the only place available.

He's seen a lot of things. Actual war-zones, villages razed down to the ground, the woods around the home he grew up in burning long into the night. Corpses piled on top of the other, the flies already starting on their eyes. Corpses he helped put there. His mother, his father, everyone he ever knew and the people he wished he hadn't.

This is just a hotel. Simple, but upon deeper inspection...

_ It's still just a hotel _ , his brain thinks. But that doesn't mean it's right.

And this one decidedly isn't.


	2. The Haunted and the Haunters

**Sunday, July 2nd.  
** **Fifteen days after.**

The awful, pink-red curtains have bathed the room in a rather bloody looking light when Emmi wakes up the next morning.

It’s odd, because in the stereotypical sense she forgets where she is for a long moment. Dealing with any amount of disorientation is not her strong suit, she thinks.

Of all the things to come back to her, it’s the heat, permeating even through the rumbling air conditioner. She’s sticky with sweat despite having kicked all but one of the blankets to the bottom of the bed to the best of her capability. Ria is still clutching onto them, unbothered by the warmth. Coming from the girl who’s worn almost nothing but sweaters since she got here, it’s not something Emmi is surprised by.

She hasn’t yet turned her phone back on; won’t risk it, frankly, but the alarm clock to her right hasn’t even reached seven yet. Unsurprisingly, Tarquin is still asleep as well, sprawled out on the second bed that he had fought so hard, and lost, to give to one of them the previous night.

Ria had also offered to sleep on the floor, as if she wouldn’t like anything better than that. From sleeping in a bathtub to some shit-hole hotel, where she was convinced bed bugs crawled underneath her all night and the faucet drip-dropped until she couldn’t stand to hear it anymore.

There’s plenty of time for Emmi to go back to sleep. Hunger is starting to gnaw at her stomach, the lack of a proper meal in the last twenty-four hours driving her to her feet.

It’s not just that. The other bit is more difficult to admit.

There’s dread in her. Not just a feeling, but a palpable existence, as if it’s taken the form of an object. There’s hardly anything in the room besides the two beds - a bedside table, oddly in the center of the opposite wall, and a lamp. The alarm clock on the desk, a lone wooden chair. The bathroom door.

She left the light on last night, force of habit. It’s something she always did when she stayed in hotels; she avoided tripping in the middle of the night if she had to run for it, and it let her see someone coming if she didn’t make it that far.

The light last night had quickly proven to be a mistake. The curtains, too, but she couldn’t control those. She was the last one to fall asleep despite Ria’s statue-like stillness beside her, Tarquin’s eyes fixated on the water stain above his head.

There was no wind, but she could see shadows moving. The flutter of a curtain here and there. The tap kept dripping even when she got up and turned it as hard as she could.

It was one thing to feel general anxiety and unease. Plenty of people felt that way. In San Francisco, right now, she was sure everyone did.

This was different. Emmi hadn’t felt this sort of discomfort in years. She was, in fact, more used to outright fear than this.

One thing is for sure - she can’t sit around and wait for everyone else to wake up knowing how many hours it could be yet. Even she needs more sleep, certainly, but it isn’t going to happen now.

Perhaps tonight will be better.

Perhaps Death Valley will freeze over, too.

She gets chased in a hurry like something’s chasing her, scrubs her face and brushes her hair back without looking in the mirror. There’s just enough of an angle that she can see the curtains in the other room. Just an inanimate object, but it feels like they’re not, and she has a vendetta against them already.

The hallway is empty but she can hear voices, still, the same as last night. There’s no answer when she knocks on the door eight down, but she didn’t expect there to be.

Bugging any of them, but particularly Soran, alleviates some of the tension from her shoulders.

They didn’t do much scoping last night. They had scrounged through the lone cafe outside of the lobby for sandwiches and cleaned them out of their drinks in the evening heat, but besides that retreating for the night had seemed appropriate after the whirlwind of the past long hours. She had seen the atrocity that was the lobby, caught a distant glimpse of the evident gift shop past it as if anyone in here had anything worth selling, and not much else.

There are still the same amount of cars outside when she steps out into the heat; theirs, and three others. She hasn’t seen any of them - in fact, she hasn’t seen  _ anyone  _ outside of her own people beside the employee working the cafe, who had looked at them as if they were the weirdest group of people she had ever dealt with in her life.

To each their own. They just might be. Even Emmi has to admit, they’re a… collection. Ria’s hair definitely isn’t helping matters any.

By the looks of it, there really isn’t anywhere to go. Outside, on what would certainly constitute a patio, there are pairs of chairs every ten or fifteen feet. Nobody occupying them. In the dirt past the parking lot lies a lone picnic table, chain broken, untethered and not held down. As if anyone around here would even bother to steal such a thing.

This is the type of situation that would be vastly improved by Arwen, she knows. No, she wouldn’t think it was any better than Emmi did; in fact, she would likely think it worse. Her and Icarus are the same in that regard - dramatic so long as it appropriately serves them, and it almost always does.

But she can hear the jokes, the scathing laughter, the accusatory fingers poked at the odd portraits on the wall and the dingy carpets. She would make everything here a charade, distracting Emmi from all of the bad parts the way she always did, at least until they caught up to her.

Arwen could be here right now. She could have allowed herself to stay, for once, and run all at the same time. Arwen would have gone with her if she had the courage to ask.

She was right all along. Emmi’s a coward. Always has been, always will be. That’s what cowards do.

They run. And then the shit catches up to them anyway.

“Contemplating the many adventures Death Valley has to offer?” Soran asks from behind her, and she scowls.

“Don’t fucking sneak up on me,” she snaps, whacking him hard once, in the chest. He doesn’t even react, leaning in the open doorway next to her.

“Didn’t,” he claims. “And besides, you’re the one that knocked.”

She glances down, and then back up. He’s already properly dressed, bright-eyed. Awake for some time, by the looks of it. Her knock didn’t rouse him, it just called him outside.

Well, he’s no Arwen, but he’s certainly a distraction.

“So, what’s the game plan for today?” she asks. They didn’t even talk about it. They never have. They’re on a wild goose chase for something that may not even exist, on the word of a tiny, fragile little alien that Soran has been housing as if he knows how to  _ parent _ , suddenly.

“Don’t know.” He shrugs, taking a few steps away. She watches his retreating back down the hall, feet sinking into the carpet. It’s nearly the same color as the fucking curtains. “Gonna figure it out.”

She sighs. Of course. Why would  _ anyone  _ in their right mind have any clue about what they’re going to do?

Soran glances over his shoulder. “You coming, or what?”

Apparently she is.

―

It’s too early.

Soran knew that when he got up, knew it when he heard the knock, and is continuing to prove himself right.

This place, for all the irony it brings to mind, is a ghost town. Everyone with half a sane mind is still tucked in bed, and the early morning sunlight filtering in has yet to wake up any of the employees, including the prehistoric gentleman that had checked him in yesterday. He was nice enough, if his judgemental squinting at the rather nice car and Soran’s general existence wasn’t totally off-putting.

He was used to it. You couldn’t chase him off so easy.

Said gentleman can’t be asleep for much longer, though. He takes a seat on one of two couches in the lobby area, striped with dark red and green and yellow. Emmi takes a long, lingering look at the state of the couch, and then sits on the edge of the coffee table.

He expects it to be more awkward. Not that him and Emmi are awkward, really, but it’s quiet and there’s nothing better to do except talk and they just… aren’t. She touches the magazines and guide-books on the table with a single finger. He feels the map crinkle further in his back pocket every time he shifts.

Soran looks sideways. “What do you think they need a fireplace for in here?”

It’s massive, made of thick stone that goes all the way up to the ceiling, and piled inside with enough wood to start a bonfire. There’s another even bigger pile spread haphazardly alongside the bench next to.

“To sage the place.”

“Does that work against ghosts?”

She hums. “Evidently not, if that’s what they’re doing.” Ah, so she feels it too. The significant difference between them, however, is that it’s rattled her. He’s seen it in her a lot recently, a shift that has her eyes constantly flickering this way and that, muscles constantly coiled like she’s ready to run.

“How does Arwen feel about you galavanting off?” he asks. Emmi’s lips purse until they’re white. Hand clenches against her knee. Shoulders roll a few times, as if trying to loosen up.

It doesn’t work.

“Does she not know?” he presses.

“I’m going to get coffee,” she says abruptly, leaving the room with urgency in her steps. Coffee is clearly synonymous with  _ no _ , then.

He sinks back further into the couch. Sure, it doesn’t exactly smell right, but it’s not going to kill him. Weighter things have tried.

“Do you know where it is?” he asks. It’s safe enough to ask. The only one anywhere near is Emmi, who has heard him talk to an empty room more times than he’s comfortable with. Something else she would expect, too, is his hardly concealed frustration at their lack of response.

The worst part is being able to feel them infringing on the edge of his conscience, as if about to guide his every thought and word, only for them to stop. Their presence is a comfort, normally.

“Can you at least tell me what it looks like?” he asks. Another little nudge, as if they’re expecting him to know.

That’s the trouble with spirits. They think everybody knows what they do. Clearly they have yet to learn, despite all the time they’ve been given, who they’re dealing with.

“Please,” he says finally. Not a word they hear come from his mouth very often. He can practically feel palpable surprise; the emotion overtakes him as well for a moment, as it often does on the rare occasion they feel things so strongly.

And yet, nothing. Not even a  _ sorry.  _ They really are useless, sometimes. He can feel their indignance at the mere thought. Even spirits don’t get an automatic pass just because they keep saving his life. Their doing it even when he doesn’t want it is what’s gotten them all into so much trouble in the first place.

Emmi returns, one styrofoam wedged precariously under her arm and the other in her hand that she slams down before him. The coffee almost splashes out over-top of it.

“What, is that a bargaining chip for me to not interrogate you?” he asks. She draws it further away from his reaching hand, but her quest to protect her own cup is deemed more important as she lets it go to avoid spilling burning hot coffee all over herself.

It’s warm enough in here, and the coffee isn’t helping. It’s not even  _ good. _

It’s one familiar thing, though. He’ll survive.

_ It’s here. _

Soran sighs. “Here as in  _ here  _ or here as in Death Valley?”

Emmi stares at him over the styrofoam cup.  _ Here _ , they repeat. He considers upending his entire cup over his head.

“Great,” he mutters. “Thanks for the tidbit.”

“Not being so helpful today?” Emmi asks, sipping at her coffee. Judging by the steam wafting up into his face, she’s got to be burning the roof of her mouth to absolute shit.

“Never are.”

Another indignant nudge. Not the truth, really; Soran was just looking to provoke a reaction out of them. They keep him alive and apparently Icarus, too, and occasionally they give him just enough information that it helps.

Today is not one of those days.

“She doesn’t know I’m here,” Emmi reveals. “Or about any of this. I think once all of this is done I’m going to take off.”

He suspected as much - the first half, anyway. “Where?”

“No idea. Anywhere.”

“Is she going with you?”

“She can’t.”

“Because you won’t let her,” he responds. Arwen would follow her anywhere if she was allowed. There’s only one way she wouldn’t.

Two now, he guesses. Not knowing and a shield are essentially the same things in their world right about now.

Soran gets to his feet, coffee clutched in one hand, at the sight of the old man weebling his way down the hallway, cane and all. “What are you so scared of?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sure there’s a whole list, but…”

“I’m not the suicidal one.”

“And we’re not talking about me,” he reminds her. “Besides, running from all of the good shit you’ve ever had in your life - you might as well be.”

As if he’s the pinnacle of experience. Soran has rarely had anything good to begin with.

“I didn’t think anyone would be up this early,” the old man says. The nametag pinned to his shirt is scratched to smithereens, unreadable. If only Soran felt more compelled to ask. “How can I help you?”

Emmi is seething, again, attempting to burn holes in the back of his shirt as he turns away. “Just a question,” he says, laying the map over the front counter, careful to keep his coffee away. “We’re looking for places to go. Nowhere specific, just any recommendations you’re willing to give.”

Soran lets him mutter to himself while the coffee cools, watches him uncap a pen and lose it immediately as he starts circling things on the map with rambling explanations to go along with them. Places across the whole park, journeys that will certainly take hours, and who knows? Not one of them could be the right place.

Or it could be any one of them. They said  _ here _ \- he's convinced it's around them somewhere. A few hours, if that. They wouldn't lie to him.

"You sure you're not lookin' for anything specific?" he asks, adjusting the glasses along the bridge of his nose with a shaky hand.

He feels Emmi approach, leaning around his shoulder to watch the next scrawl of the pen. "Somewhere that feels like this place does," she says, looking up expectantly.

It could mean any number of things; Soran gets it, and when he looks over the counter the man clearly does too.

There are no secrets here. They're surrounded by bad places and looking for more. Only bad places could hide something so wildly dangerous, the possible key to their future.

The man adjusts his glasses again. "Well," he says, pen trailing slowly across the map to the north. "I think I might just have a few ideas."

―

Somehow, he's warm and cold at the same time.

There’s the first difference between this bed and the one Icarus has been calling home back in San Francisco. This one is uncomfortable, sweltering, sheets scratching at his bare skin. For some reason, despite this, he’s cold in all of the oddest places - the tips of his toes, all the way up the back of his neck. His hands, on the other hand, are burning, laid out in a blotch of sunlight that’s managed it’s way through the window and onto the bed.

Same old. Nothing to be seen here. He snatches them back.

He knows without rolling over that Soran is gone - he was the only thing making the bed slightly more comfortable. First he uses all of the hot water last night and then he leaves before the sun is even fully up.

Again - same old.

In the very least, it’s confirmation that he has some time to himself, something he isn’t going to get much of in this time. They would come and get him if they were leaving. Hopefully if they were getting breakfast, too. His stomach is already rumbling.

A shower is clearly priority number one, though. The grime from the walk and the bus and the nine hour car ride is still clinging stubbornly to his skin, layered with the blowing dust of the desert. It’s likely he’ll never feel clean again.

It’s later than he expected - almost nine. They should have been gone by this time, he imagines, but apparently someone was letting him sleep.

Unless they left him here.

They better not have.

That thought alone is enough to send him running for the shower. Unlike the unnerving quietness of the hotel during the night, now he can hear practically everything. Voices through the walls, chirping bouts of laughter, footsteps pounding up and down the halls. Everything has been amplified in such a way that it almost seems unnatural… Icarus couldn’t be imagining it all.

Could he? He still felt weird, deep down, a constant exhaustion present that held on tight during all of his waking hours, attempting to drag him down.

He felt it even stepping into the shower. The usual feeling that came with moving immediately after opening your eyes, a sluggishness that evaporated the more you moved. Not even the blast of sudden hot water really woke him up, though, not like it usually would. It only sends his extremities into a further state of odd numbness, his fingers tingling as he holds them under the spray, scratching at the dirt under his nails.

Something's not right. He can downplay it all he wants, ignore it even, but he hasn't felt right in days. It's not just this place, as easy as it would be to blame. It's just him.

The smart thing to do would be to tell someone. Soran, certainly, could have an answer for this. On the off chance he could, someone has to know. Someone could help him. He's been asking for so much help he feels like a pathetic waste of space, something he can't stand to feel. The mentality isn't something he handles well. Icarus knows his worth, even if it's a practically delusional amount. He knows he's worth something, even if that something isn't very much. He was starting to feel like he mattered more.

And what now? He starts to feel like a burden, again, like something no one wants. He was meant to die, and maybe he should have. Make everyone's life easier sort of thing. Soran never asked for this. No one did, frankly. If whatever's wrong with him ends up dragging them down...

No, it can't. Maybe everything is fine. Nothing has to be wrong with him. He just feels off. Everybody has days like that. It's the anxiety of his newly formed life blowing to shit, the thought of it ending after it barely even started.

He's fine. He stands under the shower for so long that he convinces himself of it, lets the grime wash down the drain and hopefully the awful feelings with it.

There's the sound of footsteps again when he steps out of the shower, louder and closer. Almost like they're pacing the room waiting for him. They're so... expectant, almost, that he only struggles into half of his clothes before he wrenches open the door to look.

And no one's there.

The footsteps stop, almost immediately.

His chest is so tight it feels worrying close to exploding, heart slamming so fast and hard he can see it moving beneath his skin, feel it in his still-tingling fingertips. There is no one there, no more noise, but there are  _ footprints _ , far smaller than his own would be. He stretches his own foot out, hardly breathing. They’re wet, as if someone came out of their own shower and failed to dry off properly before they strode across the room. The worst part is they’re perfect, like a stamp.

Like a practical fucking joke. Even though he turned the shower off it’s like he can hear the water running still, or maybe it’s almost crying…

More voices, this time outside the door. Icarus doesn’t hesitate, vaulting half-over the end of the bed. It doesn’t matter if they belong to real people or not. He just needs to get out.

Icarus wrenches the door open and crashes immediately into Soran, who almost falls over, and then Emmi, who he knocks back into the opposite wall. He’s not sure who swears louder.

“Help,” he begs, unsure of what he’s even asking for.

“With what?” Soran asks. “Getting up at a semi-decent time?”

“If you need help putting a shirt on, we should have left you at home,” Emmi says, grabbing him tight by the shoulder. “Christ alive, your back really  _ is  _ fucked up.”

“Thanks,” he manages shakily, turning back to the room.

The footprints are gone.

Immediately, and irrationally, he wishes he was dead.

He watches Soran walk back into the room with a plea dying in his throat, a plea for nothing at all. He just shouldn't be in there. There’s nothing  _ there _ , and yet here Icarus stands, clutching his shirt like a shield, Emmi giving him a puzzled look.

Soran pitches his phone out into the hall, thankfully caught by Emmi, and then his shoes, which bounce and roll to a stop two feet away. He returns shouldering the backpack - his wallet, probably the keys, definitely the weapons. There’s no way he’d leave them in there unsupervised.

Which means they’re leaving. For now, something like relief floods over him.

He’s still staring helplessly into the room all the way until Soran locks the door and stops him from further tormenting himself.

“You okay?” he asks. There it is - the slightest bit of concern that he’s come to expect, anticipate, wait for eagerly like it’s all he lives for.

Right now it just might be.

“Yeah,” he lies. “All good.”

―

"Well," Tarquin mumbles. "At least the food isn't half-bad."

Ria wouldn't know. Ria's not actually eating. Whatever he's got on his plate is appetizing enough, though - eggs, bacon, some toast that's a hair too dark for his liking, but it's not a big deal. Besides, it's not like Ria knows the difference. He's eating it like it's fine so she has to believe it, even if it came out of what certainly has to be one of the sketchier kitchens on this planet, made by someone even sketchier.

Said cook, waiter, whatever they are, is looking at them peculiarly. More Ria, he suspects. She didn't eat yesterday when everyone wandered in here to track down ready-made food and she's not eating this morning, either. Maybe she should. Combined with the nearly neon hair, she's an easy target to pick out of the crowd, even when she's not acting all that suspicious.

She does stick out, he has to admit. You can see the curiosity in her eyes every time she glances around, something child-like in it. Seeing everything for the first time.

It's not like this is a great sight, or anything, but it's something different than anything she faced back in San Francisco.

He nudges a strip of bacon to the edge of his plate, tapping his fork on the edge of it until he gets her attention. "He's looking at you because you're not eating."

"You think?"

"You're pretty small. He must think you're starving yourself, or something."

"Or maybe that you guys are starving me."

Fair enough point. They've all offered; she just has no interest in it, and he can't blame her. They've never had any use for it before now, so why would she start just to act normal?

Then again, she's done everything else. She doesn't look like them anymore. Maybe it's for the best if she starts blending in like a normal human.

Even a charade of one would be good enough.

He nudges the bacon again and Ria finally obliges to pick it up, turning it this way and that like it's the weirdest thing she's ever seen in her life.

Not even close.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Just eat it," he instructs, shoving another scoop of eggs into his mouth to avoid any further questioning. Not that she strikes him as someone who would inherently be a vegetarian, or anything, but the idea of telling her that it came from something that was probably moving not long ago...

Yeah, he's not going to.

She takes a single bite, hardly big enough to taste. Doesn't even react.

"That bad, huh?" he asks. She takes another bite - bigger, this time.

"It's fine," she says. He can't even tell if he believes her or not. She's one of the more difficult people to read that he's come across in his life. Tarquin has seen so many that he thought he had it all managed. Everybody could be figured out if you gave it enough time.

Not her, though. She's difficult, and he sort of likes it. When was the last time he experienced a challenge like this in understanding someone?

He slathers jam on a corner of toast and nudges that towards her too, until she caves. That seems to go over better - something about the sweetness, maybe. Tarquin looks around casually, mouth full, watching until the man at the counter turns away and back into the kitchen, as if finally satisfied.

The second he's gone Ria picks up the little pot of half-empty jam and peers into it, eyebrows drawn together.

"Jam," he clarifies. She nods thoughtfully.

The cook returns quickly, another plate in hand, and drops it in front of her. It's not actually hers - it's Icarus', for whenever Soran and Emmi return with him in tow, but he says nothing of the sort, thanking the man before he turns away. He's just going to be grateful for the fact that they've found somewhere with hot food.

Ria picks up the jar again once he leaves and sticks her finger into it. He's not about to stop her.

"God, what is your obsession with eating things straight out of the jar?" Soran asks behind them. Ria drops the jar and it clatters across the table and nearly into Tarquin's lap before he manages to shove it back in her direction. 

He makes no attempt to stop her, though, which is the funny part, as she dunks her finger back into it.

Emmi, he notices, is in the very beginning of a slow lap around the cafe, glancing out each window as if there's a different sight to behold. Soran is still standing, staring expectantly at Icarus, who sits down with a thud at the very end of the table away from them, waiting until Ria slides the plate over to him.

He's sat directly on his own jittery hands. He's not going to eat very efficiently like that.

"You okay?" he asks.

Icarus' eyes snap up to his face. He's fresh out of the shower by the looks of it, hair dripping water into the collar of his shirt. Only one of his shoes is tied. He looks, very decidedly, not like Icarus at all.

"Wish everyone would stop asking me that," he says, an artificial cheeriness below it that makes him wonder it even more. He jerks one of his hands free and unrolls his silverware, hands shaking slightly, and stabs into his eggs with far too much force for it to be considered normal.

He wishes they weren't all staring, but...

Tarquin nudges his second, unopened jar of jam towards Ria, shoving the last of his bacon into his mouth. "I'm just gonna go put something in the car," he says. "I'll be right back."

"Or we'll meet you out there," Soran says, sitting down to Icarus' right, handing him the keys. He nudges him with his shoe. No response.

Okay then.

Tarquin doesn't think he'll be gone that long. All he needs to do is shove the staff back under the seats, which proved to be a complicated process the first time but not a very long one. It'll be easier now without everyone's feet in the way.

He retrieves the staff tucked under his bed and removes his phone from the charger. They likely won't be back until later, and just in case, he wants to be prepared. Everything outside of the staff is going in his pockets just in case he needs them.

It's one stupid thought, when he sees the car and marvels how it's still in the same spot as where they left it, as if it would have inexplicably moved in the middle of the night. Everything about this place just seems like a collection of stupid thoughts one after the other. Surely he can't be blamed for that.

The staff just barely fits, like yesterday, but after a bit of struggle he manages to shove it back far enough that it won't come rolling out directly out into the back of anyone's ankles. It's not nearly as far of a drive today, only two hours or so, but he doesn't think anyone would appreciate it.

He steps back, satisfied, letting the suffocating wind buffet against him unbidden as he closes the door and locks it. It’s not quite as bad out here as it was yesterday, but it’s still early. There’s plenty of time.

He’s not two steps away from the car when he hears the unmistakable sound of the locks turning back open, and he pauses.

The car has not moved. No one is there.

Why did he suddenly expect there to be?

Tarquin steps back and tests the passenger door; it opens at his pull, even though he just locked it. That noise he heard wasn’t a mistake.

He locks it again and backs up, watching. Tarquin doesn’t think he would have seen anything happen the first time even if he was looking. This time, it stays locked. The breeze dies down a bit, only for a moment, and then picks back up with renewed force.

It feels a lot like something follows him back to the doors, disappearing only when he shuts the door between him and the outside world.

He thinks he hears the locks click again just before he does.

He does not go back outside.

―

“So where are we going, exactly?” Ria asks.

She offered to take the middle without knowing how long she was going to be stuck in here, but it had only seemed fair. She’s by far the smallest, and Tarquin had already taken the full brunt of it yesterday. That, coupled with the fact that Icarus doesn't even offer anyone else the front seat, and Emmi sort of... stands there and waits for her to get in really sold her on the middle seat, that's for sure.

Beside her, Tarquin flips the locks open and closed at least three times, eyes narrowed, and then ducks down between his own legs to stare underneath the seats. He looks a lot like what she imagines a pretzel to be.

“Ghost town,” Soran answers, throwing the crumpled map into Icarus’ lap, who stares at it with no interest in his eyes.

“Yay!” Emmi chirps, voice worryingly over-enthusiastic.

Yay, indeed.

She has no idea what a ghost town is, really. Probably means exactly as it reads. Not much of anything, a collection of ramshackle findings and things only deemed fit to be left behind, inhabited only by things that don't actually exist.

The longer she spends here, though, the more she's starting to believe. Ghosts weren't even a thing until she got down here. Even the stories Muelara told them about the supernatural seemed fake until she saw them first-hand. Sure, she was one of them, but that didn't count. Until a few weeks ago they didn't know if she existed, either.

Everything she knew, as it's beginning to come down to it, is everything Muelara taught and told her. A lot of things, vocally, and not so much physically. Everyone in this car could squash her like the bug she is, but she knows a lot, and can learn just as quickly.

Today, it's a ghost town. Who knows what tomorrow will be.

There's not much time to wonder, though. Ria has to put enough focus behind the task at hand in order to actually complete it, even if it seems impossible to finish.

She's never been particularly optimistic not even on a good day, but she has to be.

They're going to find it. Maybe not today, or in any of the next few. Maybe not here at all.

But they will find it.

Emmi leans around her to snatch the map off Icarus' lap, still lying there untouched, and flattens it over her own legs and a bit of Ria's too. There are numerous red circles, a few unintelligibly scrawled words around some of the smaller ones and a series of arrows pointed in random directions where the words seem even more unclear, as if an attempt at directions was made. As if anyone could understand them in the first place.

Ria thinks she starts to make sense of it as they wind through desert roads, passing hardly any cars at all. All the while the temperature starts to read higher and higher, and has climbed into the triplet digits by the time the GPS on Soran's phone actually starts to show their destination in frame.

It's eerie, because they're properly alone. If something happened out here, no one would know. They haven't seen a car in nearly thirty minutes, and the last thing they passed at all was two buildings almost directly a cross from each other, a gas station with a grand total of two pumps and a shack that supposedly served as a psychic's headquarters.

Emmi had once again seemed ridiculously thrilled about the prospect of that. Everyone else, not so much. Ria rolls the word psychic over and over in her head until it begins to take shape into something more, and decides she doesn't like the idea much either.

Her future is already uncertain enough.

Only one sign pops up to show any indication of their destination, a stake with a wooden arrow at the top, 'Skidoo Site' written on it, a number nine at its side.

Even when they really arrive, though, you can't tell.

They're in a valley, though the sun is directly overhead and pouring in regardless. The hills on all three sides are rocky and stretch out for miles. Further up some of them, in the not so distant area, she thinks she can see some structures only a moment from falling apart, clinging to the fragile mountainsides. There are even less of them on any sort of flat ground. A shack close to where one of the hills begins to rise with only two standing walls. Above anything else she can see signs scattered about what is clearly constituting a makeshift parking lot. Most, if not all of them, look like warnings.

Emmi gets out, muttering something about the heat as it blasts everyone in the car from her open door. Ria allows herself one last long moment in the air conditioning, a blessing she hadn't realized she needed to exist until now.

It could be anywhere out in these thousands of miles, hidden in the mountains, or underground. She can see a precarious hole in one of the mountainsides, yawning and black, another sign posted directly outside of it.

Emmi slams the door shut once she realizes Ria isn't moving. That doesn't stop her from staring.

"So what are we looking for, exactly?" Icarus asks. His door is open only an inch, and he looks displeased about even that.

"Think you'll know if you see it," Soran says, taking a step out into the desert.

Ria thinks so, too, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy to find. For all they know it's across the state, in another desert. Maybe Muelara was wrong altogether and it's somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, never to be found.

Tarquin gets out. "You coming?" he asks, reaching under the seats. He slings the staff over his back - Soran already has the backpack, and is taking off with it, Icarus close on his heels. Emmi is staring at the closest of the signs, hand on her hip, head cocked to one side.

The weapons are coming with, apparently.

Ria has no choice but to go with them too.

  
  
  
  
  



	3. The Shadows All Around You

**Sunday, July 2nd.  
** **Fifteen days after.**

“Notice - Warning,” Tarquin reads. “Surrounding this historic mining townside are over 1,000 individual mine openings. Those openings and associated underground mine workings constitute an extremely safety hazard. Visitors to the area must use caution at all times. Children and pets should not be permitted to roam freely. Under no circumstances should these mine openings be entered. In case of accident immediately contact a member of the park service staff.”

Tarquin deigns to check his phone despite already knowing the answer. Only one bar, and it constantly flickers down to nothingness. No contacting any service staff then. Beside him, Ria swallows. Emmi’s eyes skim it over again as she reads it for what is surely the fifth or fourth time. Icarus sighs.

“Watch where you’re putting your feet,” Soran comments, and turns off into the hills. That’s about as much concern as they’re going to get out of him.

He should start looking, too, but Tarquin stares at the sign some more as well. So many people have likely looked at this, judging by the worn edges and the cracks in the support poles.

“So… would you be considered a child, or a pet?” Emmi asks. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who she’s talking to.

Tarquin looks at her. She smiles.

“Have fun!” she says quickly, turning away from them. “Be careful!”

For all her teasing, she cares. He doesn’t think Emmi is going to wander too far away from them. He has the staff, and there really is no sight of anyone else so he’s not too worried, but better safe than sorry.

“Where to first?” he asks. Ria gnaws on her lip. Someone really ought to invest in some chapstick for her.

She spins in a slow circle, eyes drifting all the way up to where the mountains meet the sky.

"I just… I feel like I should  _ know _ ," she whispers. She sounds heartbroken in a way he hasn't heard in a long time. A longing lingers deeper, desperation for information that no one has. Someone always has to be first, but is it meant to be them?

Muelara and her merry gang of aliens could've gone the opposite way up the coast. They could already have it.

The truth is you never really  _ know. _

"Maybe that's what we need to watch for," he offers. "You have to be intrinsically connected to something like that. If we find it, you'll know before any of us."

She looks up. "Do you really believe that?"

He nods. Tarquin hasn't believed in anything good for a very long time - not Gods, or help from above, powers to heal what's wrong with the world. Just nightmares and monsters and him, still standing even when everything falls apart around him.

Always  _ him _ .

"If that's the case, it may not be here," Ria says. Normally she doesn't sound so certain but her shoulders have straightened, giving her that bit of extra height that she needs. Still nothing compared to the rest of them, but it makes her look… more.

She always was. He had that feeling immediately. But now she actually looks it.

"Well, let's take a look around anyway," he urges. "It could be out there a little ways."

Her confidence has not blown quite sky-high, but it's enough to see in her eyes. His, however, has ebbed out like the tide. That means they're one spot down. Either one closer to finding it, or never seeing it at all.

To be honest, Tarquin still doesn't know why he's here. They don't need him. Isn't that what it always comes down to? No one really needs him.

He considered it in Oakland. A bus ticket for himself across the country. He saw the airport outside of the depot and nearly high-tailed it. It's second nature to flee.

And yet he hasn't.

They would have let him go. No one has the leverage to make him stay. Even if Ria had tried… no, nothing would have stopped him if he made the decision. Tarquin has devoted a special amount of attention to  _ not  _ checking his phone, but looking for his service bars it was difficult not to notice the missed messages piling up. Yesterday it had been generic things. Today it was concerned ones. He had no idea what the others were receiving, but it had to be much of the same.

Someone would put the dots together soon enough. They would never know all five of them had left the city; there was no way to know such a thing.

Sooner or later, the pieces would slip into place. Every puzzle was completed eventually, save for the one left unfinished on the floor of his apartment.

He hoped he would get to finish it one day.

Ria could help too. She had a knack for it. Ria, who had wandered off a little ways into the dry brush, leaving him staring blankly at that same sign.

He walks to her side, the staff tapping against his legs. She's stopped in front of a wide netting spread out across the ground, quite obviously covering a hole at least ten feet in diameter.

There's one of said thousands.

"I didn't know they were just holes in the ground." Ria frowns, toeing at the edge of the netting.

"Might have just been a collapse," he surmises. Emmi is wandering off closer to what looks like a main entrance, a barred off hole in the side of the mountain. Maybe they lead to the same place.

Maybe people were just doomed to fall, too. If that’s the case it’s no wonder the place is a ghost town.

Really, it hardly even counts as one. Hardly any free-standing buildings. Even the air isn’t so ominous as it undoubtedly is at the hotel; there it’s palpable, almost like you can taste it. Out here he feels… free.

Further evidence that it may not be all it’s cracked up to. Abandoned it is, but it doesn’t appear to be much else.

If there were something wrong he’d know, the same way Ria could feel something too.

Ria begins to edge carefully around the netting. He glances around. Emmi has stopped just outside the mine entrance and kicks at one of the wooden supports as he watches. Soran and Icarus are headed deeper into the hills, but who knows how far one of them will make it before they call it quits. It doesn’t look like there’s much that way at all.

“I think I might head up,” he decides, looking at the mountain peaks. They’re steep, but not that far.

It would certainly be easier than walking.

“Up,” Ria echoes. “Bird’s eye view?”

She’s smiling. “Something like that,” he concedes. That, and it’ll be easy for him to get up there, much faster than anyone else. In and out, completely unobtrusive. One transformation to get up, another down, and all in a matter of seconds. If someone is lurking around here, they’ll never know any the wiser.

“Will you take this?” he asks, shrugging the staff off his shoulder. “I won’t be long.”

He was prepared to put it back in the car until Ria thrusts her arms out. He steps forward, gently lowering one of them down until he can slip it over her own. “I won’t be long,” he says.

She nods, shifting her feet to get used to the new weight on her back, trying to crane her neck back to catch a glimpse. It already stretches over his own head; on her it looks practically comical.

Comical is good for a few minutes, anyhow. Anything other than bad would be.

She smiles again. He’s starting to see it more often.

He takes off.

―

A bird wheels through the sky far above their heads, dark as night.

“Hey!” Soran shouts up at it. “Fuck you!”

Admittedly, it takes him a second, at least until the bird swoops down enough for them to make out and croaks at them before flapping off again. He watches the raven - Tarquin, whatever he’s supposed to call it, disappear over the hill they’re ascending.

“He’s got the right idea,” Icarus admits. Soran should have taken off long ago too and got a good luck around. So what if he was stuck down here in the meanwhile?

It’s not like the wing thing is a touchy subject or anything.

Tarquin returns soon enough, landing on the remnants of a tree split into several precarious pieces, and caws at them again. Icarus is tempted enough to begin the descent down, but who knows what he’s calling them for. If he doesn’t go, Soran will find out on his own.

He’s beaten there by a long shot - his legs are aching, he’s sweating more than he ever has in his life, and he’s exhausted all over again despite having actually slept through the night. Perhaps it was the rude awakening this morning.

He’s just trying not to think about it.

“Oh,” Soran says. “So  _ that’s  _ the mill he was talking about.”

Icarus struggles up to his side, feet slipping on the crest. On the other side of the massive hill there’s some sort of structure built into it, numerous platforms and rusted through metal walls that gradually descends to flatter ground at the very bottom, where a staircase with several missing boards leads to the main platform.

“Mill?” he questions. Soran skids a few feet down the hill until his feet hit the first platform - the whole thing shakes and groans under his weight.

“Hey,” he warns. “Don’t do that.

Predictably, his reservations go ignored as Soran takes a few more steps out. The supports look unbelievably flimsy. Sure, it’s not a high fall, and he would likely only tumble a little ways down the rocky hill before stopping, but  _ still.  _ He’s not overly enthused about it.

"Be careful," Icarus hisses as another one of the wooden planks creaks ominously under Soran's weight. "You're being ridiculous. There's no way an alien thing is hidden in a man-made structure that was crawling with people sometime in the last hundred years."

"You never know."

"I do know," he insists, waving his arms. " _ Soran _ !"

"You want me, come get me."

Oh, hell  _ no _ . Icarus begins his precarious scramble down the loose scree above the mill. They should have just gone to the bottom of the hill and went up the stairs - yes, they’re riddled with holes, but it’s still better.

"I wish you would stop," he tries, testing his weight on the first of the boards. Soran grabs onto a larger protruding plank and crouches down, as if about to lower himself into what little of the structure still exists.

"And I wish you would tell me what happened this morning, but we can't all get what we want."

Icarus swallows. Tests the next plank and moves forward once again. "Nothing happened," he says. "I just ―"

"Continue to be a bad liar," Soran interrupts. "I know."

Icarus straightens. "I am not."

Soran snorts. He's still, thankfully, perhaps reconsidering his initial idea to descend lower.

He holds an arm out finally. "Are you coming or what?"

It's taken him this long to realize that he doesn't know if he's ever seen Soran wander around so casually like this in nothing but a short-sleeved shirt. Certainly not outside of their little apartment. The sun is bright and glaring but he can still make out each individual scar on his arm. Some jagged and long, some so small that he can't help but wonder if they're from something else. It's enough to send his stomach rolling - more than it already was, anyway. He's felt sick for a while now

At least he knows, looking now, that Soran doesn't so much continuously lie to him as he just hides things. And there's a  _ difference. _

Icarus grabs his arm, unintentionally or not at the heart of where the scars are the worst, wincing everytime the unsteady beams creak beneath his feet. Soran is craning his neck down the chute, but Icarus can hardly move. If he falls, that’s game over. Broken neck, maybe, if he tumbles over the cross-beams and lands the wrong way.

“Satisfied?” he asks, ignoring the wave of dizziness that passes over him when he so much as glances over the edge. “It’s not here.”

“What happened this morning?” Soran asks.

“Christ, can we not do this right now?” he fires back. “Or at least not  _ here _ ?”

“Seems like as good a place as any,” Soran says casually. He leans back over the opening of the chute; Icarus tugs back harder on his arm and nearly succeeds in pulling him away.

“Don’t be an asshole,” he snaps. “If I fell―”

“You think I would let you fall?”

“That’s now what I meant! Can we just go? Please?”

“A  _ please _ ?” Soran says incredulously. “I really must be going insane.”

“You’re not the only one.” Icarus takes a step back, as big as he’ll allow himself, and finally Soran follows him. The weight of that comment either goes unnoticed, or Soran is sick of trying. Unrelated, likely both.

Only when he’s on solid ground does he allow himself to look up, squinting against the harsh sunlight.

And he pauses.

Icarus doesn’t know why his gaze travels all the way to the horizon and all the way back, and why it sees what it does until he realizes that he’s not hallucinating.

A figure in the next mountain range. Two or three, even, as his vision gradually focuses. Not one of them is a desert-born mirage.

“Soran,” he manages. As he watches, the very first of the figures almost seems to  _ disappear _ , melting to the ground. Two limbs transform to four as the whole body gives away into something else.

He can’t tell what it is from here. Something animal, almost perfectly blending into its surrounding environment.

“What the fuck,” he breathes. Soran has picked them out, too, watching alongside him as the same process repeats to the second, and then the third. All three lope off into the distance as they were never there at all. Despite nothing at all happening, really, his heart is slamming in his chest as if they’re running right at him.

“There’s a tribe that lives around here, I think,” Soran says. It almost sounds, dare he say it, like an explanation. “Probably skinwalkers, or―”

“What?” he croaks. “They’re  _ what _ ?”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“None of this is fine,” he bursts out. “God, I fucking hate it here, I feel like I’m going insane, I don’t know―”

“Hey,” Soran interrupts, readjusting a tighter grip on his arm to give him a little shake. It’s a damn good thing they’re on solid ground. “Chill. You know you don’t have to be here, right?”

“And where exactly would I be instead?”

“I don’t know, Vegas? You could be there while we deal with this.”

“Because leaving you here is smart,” he manages. “Right. Really good fucking plan there.”

“What about all of this makes you think leaving me here is bad?”

He read through it instantly, because as terrible as it sounds, Icarus would always be more concerned about leaving him here than anyone else. And, as today has gone, it’s just going back to this morning. Something is inherently  _ wrong  _ here, and he can’t place it, doesn’t know what it could possibly be…

He just knows it’s bad, and he feels himself headed the same way.

“I hate this,” he repeats. If Soran wasn’t holding onto him he’d sink to the ground and cry, he thinks.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be here.”

“You can leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” he insists. “So stop trying to make me.”

Soran is quiet, finally. Wondering, no doubt, how all of this could have spun out of control this quickly, or maybe just Icarus. Of course he would be the one to go downhill first. It just fits. This is the story that was always going to be told.

Right now, despite it all, his body is just crying out for comfort, stronger than he normally does, but Soran tears away from him too fast and too suddenly for him to do anything. He whirls around, tearing his hands free from Icarus’ arms as he looks around.

There’s something almost frantic to his eyes.

“What?” he asks. Soran whirls back on  _ him _ , suddenly.

“Did you not hear that?”

“Hear what?”

There was nothing. No conversation, no sound of a raven back up the hill. Just the wind, same as always. When he reaches back for him Soran has gone stiff all over, muscles coiled, all fight or flight. It’s the same feeling Icarus felt in him just before he snapped that person’s poor fucking neck in the parking with a twist of his hand.

“Hear what?” he repeats. It’s so  _ quiet.  _

Maybe even quieter than it was before.

Soran doesn’t so much as twitch. “A gunshot.”

―

When Emmi hears the gunshot, she doesn’t even think.

She just moves.

Rocks and grit scrape open her knees and palm as she dives to the ground, keeping herself as low as possible. There are things embedded in her skin. She doesn’t dare move.

Across the valley, some hundred yards away, Ria is still standing. Walking, even, casually picking her way through the dirt, pausing to readjust the staff Tarquin left over her back. When she turns around a minute later to find Emmi on the ground, she freezes.

She should yell out to her. Physically can’t. All ability to task has died halfway up her throat, along with most of her air.

Soran has a gun, all the way up the hill. That’s the only explanation - him firing blindly into the desert to terrify them, or―

Ria skids up to her side, spraying her with dirt and dust. Before she’s even stilled Emmi reaches up, grabs a fistful of her shirt, and drags her to the ground. The staff nearly hits her in the head.

“Did you not fucking hear that?” she hisses, almost unable to register the sound of her own voice over the thundering of her heart.

“What?” Ria asks, not looking nearly worried enough for Emmi’s liking.

By the main sign, a raven lands on the hood of the car, dips down over the edge of it out of sight, and when it returns Tarquin is two-legged again. He waves a hand at them, a clear gesture to head his way, and he ducks back into the backseat of the car. Frankly, Emmi's never heard a better idea in her life.

"Let's go," she snaps, though she doesn't wait whatsoever as she lurches to her feet and takes off for the car. She can still hear the odd, offbeat echo of the shot ringing out in the back of her head even when Tarquin pops the door open, allowing her enough room to dive in next to him, Ria on his other side.

"What the fuck was that?" she asks, slightly breathless. Maybe the heat is getting to her.

She wishes that could be the explanation used for everything.

"You heard it too?" Tarquin asks. "Soran did, too, but Icarus―"

"Of course Soran did," she spits. "He's the one―"

"No, no, it wasn't him. The gun's in his bag, he didn't even have it out. Believe me, I saw them."

"Then who the hell was it?" she bursts out, twisting frantically in her seat. She doesn't have nearly enough room to properly look around. There were no cars anywhere near when they arrived, certainly no people. The shot wasn't even aimed at any of them, unless they missed spectacularly, but it was close enough that it felt like it was. Could sound travel out here further than she’s used to?

That has to be what it was. Someone further away popping off shots for fun, or hunting, or… or  _ something _ .

Because nothing can be wrong.

Having to sit there waiting for Soran and Icarus only increases her paranoia tenfold, wondering who else could be wandering up towards them in all the minutes they wait. Even when she sees them it’s as if she’s convinced they’re someone else, a trick of the light, a stranger with a gun coming to finally finish her off. Her past, catching up.

The accusation previously loaded in her throat vanishes when Soran and Icarus both get in, the twin slam of doors behind them. He tosses the backpack by Icarus’ feet.

Even without Tarquin’s previous words, she can see the truth just by looking at his face. It wasn’t him. Not who took the gun out, not who pulled the trigger.

“Thought it might have been you,” she manages, if only to make casual conversation. The car rumbles to life.

“That’s me,” Soran says. “Randomly popping off shots into the desert.”

“I just thought,” she starts, but her voice dies. What did she think? Even if someone had been here threatening their very existence, he wouldn’t have shot them.

No, it would have been quick, efficient.

Silent.

“Are we actually leaving?” Icarus asks, equal parts confused and relieved as Soran begins to back the car onto the road.

“We can come back later.”

“I really don’t think it’s here,” Ria murmurs. In an odd turn, she seems the calmest of them all - surely some of that stems from the odd fact that she didn’t hear it, but Icarus isn’t reacting the same. He looks shaken like the rest of them.

“Okay, so we don’t come back, ever,” Soran says instead. “Sounds good.”

If he’s rattled, even in the slightest, then that’s for the best. No use in wandering around a place that feels more dangerous than it looks.

Emmi knew what she was getting into when she spoke those words at the hotel, even more-so when the old man had begun to circle new places.  _ She  _ had opened that can of worms. Willingly, too. Even still, it makes the most sense. For something to have been undiscovered for long, it has to be hidden in a place that sets people’s nerves alight, drives them off when they think they’ve even begun to crack the code.

A place like the one they’re leaving, but it’s not the only one around here. The hotel is the same way. There are a dozen more out there. And, judging by that old man’s knowledge, everyone knows about it.

Everyone knows, and no one cares? How is that possible? Emmi has had enough difficulty living in  _ normal  _ places, and can’t for a single second imagine living in one like this.

She definitely should have left while she had the chance. Let them complete their far-fetched mission if they want.

Now she’s invested, though. She wants answers as much as the rest of them do, and she wants the satisfaction of finding the damn thing and then getting the fuck out of dodge, intact and alive. This place won’t be her end.

Even a half hour away though, when Soran pulls off to stop for gas at the only station that seems to exist anywhere around here, she feels like it could be. Soran gets out, Tarquin too, but she feels frozen to her chair despite the sweat pooling around her legs. Ria has already assumed her previous position after letting Tarquin out, legs tucked up to her chest.

“Neither of you heard it?” she asks. “For real.”

Icarus glances over his shoulder towards her. “Why would I lie about it?”

She shrugs. Everyone lies. It’s not always for a good reason. She does it all the time. They didn’t hear it the same way but they look equally suspicious.

Emmi eyes the ramshackle building across the road, the little blinking sign in front of it. “Maybe we really  _ should  _ go see a psychic,” she tries. “They can tell us if we’re all going certifiably insane or not.”

“Have fun,” Icarus mutters. “You’ll be doing that alone.”

“What? You don’t want to know?”

“I already  _ do  _ know. And I’m beginning to think the same about everyone else.”

So what, she’s off the bender. Big deal. At least thinking about that, calling herself crazy, is making the gunshot and the rolling hills and the scorching sun seem like lesser things

Tarquin returns to the car with drinks, bless his soul. Another distraction. He drops a smaller plastic package into Ria’s lap - from her angle, it looks sort of like chapstick. She chooses not to question it. Soran keeps tapping his fingers along the windowpane to her right, startling her every time one gets too close to her ear.

She’s still not fully distracted.

The gunshot, those Agency members in the park, the eerie coloring of the room this morning, the silence in her being the first to wake… it all feels like it’s beginning to add up into something more. Filling into a cup that’s not big enough to hold the contents being shoved into it.

Soon enough, it’s going to spill over.

―

She’s still sitting in the car like she’s never going to get out by the time everyone else does.

Tarquin, too, slides across the back bench to follow Emmi out when Ria doesn’t move, let alone even unlock the door to her left.

It had seemed like a good idea to head back to the hotel for the day. Ria had thought so, too. Now they’re back, though, and she’s beginning to re-think it all. They’re not going to find it unless they’re out there looking, and being here only seems to make things worse by the minute.

“I’m going to go ask that bastard what the hell happened out there,” she hears Soran say, but can’t see him. A building door creaks open and slams shut.

Tarquin peers back in through the door. “You okay?”

She nods. She didn’t hear it anyway. The panic seems to have subsided some in the two hours it took them to get back, but now in return it’s her that feels off, and it has nothing to do with the little cylindrical tube she has shoved in her pocket. She has no idea what it is, but Tarquin gave it to her, so she’s going to keep it.

She should get out of the car. Act like a normal human being, you know. With the door wide open the heat will start to pour in, and soon she’ll be sweltering, left out to rest.

And Tarquin is still waiting for her.

She slides out too instead of reaching for her own door, shielded from the sunlight by him hovering above her.

“Food?” he asks. “I’ll let you eat nothing but jam and won’t tell anyone.”

It’s not like she has anything better to do.

She follows him back to the cafe, resuming their exact same seats from this morning across from one another. The difference is the few other people lingering about now - a small family in the far corner, a couple to their distant right, an old man flipping through the newspaper by the largest of the windows. And them, the oddest of all, parked smack dab in the middle not far from the main counter. She’d rather be up against a wall.

Change was inevitable down here, but something in Ria was still clinging to the same things she had done before - easy escape routes, taking shelter even when it wasn’t necessary, always making sure at least one person in the room was being looked at before she was.

One of the children in the corner in the room is pointing at her, hushed whispers spilling from his mouth. Likely something to do with her hair, she rationalizes, but then anxiety swallows it whole like a raging beast. She blinks. Feels the contact slip and slide in her right eye.

Tarquin returns with a plate of fries in one hand, scattering several packets across the table between them. She expects a reaction, but gets none. Her eyes are clearly fine, then.

The kid quickly stops pointing, too, swatted down by what she assumes is his mother.

“They put all the jam away, or I would have grabbed some,” Tarquin informs her, tearing into one of the packets.

“Have to get some extras tomorrow,” she murmurs.

“That’s the spirit.”

With several of the packets open he works on creating a goopy pile of their contents, something red that’s brighter than blood but still manages to make her nauseous regardless. Even when he turns the plate towards her she refuses to dunk her finger in it.

Fries are good, though. Simple. Today simple is something they need.

Tarquin looks better than before, but his eyes are watching the room with every fry he shoves in his mouth, using each one as an opportunity to glance around casually. Her back is to most of the room, which means she’s the one with eyes on the door. She’s never had to think in such a way before, not so intently. Before an escape plan was fleeing from a particularly painful conversation, a training session in which she wasn’t going to be able to do anything anyway.

Now it’s for her life. If someone in here pulled a gun, what would she do? She may not have heard the gunshot today, for some reason, but she’s heard enough already. There’s no way she would make it to the door even despite her size. The window, then? None of them are open, but Tarquin could shatter one of them. Would that be quick enough?

She has no idea. She really needs to learn. All of her options need to be open. Every-day she spends with them feels like a lesson that she’s not picking up quickly enough.

Just like before.

“I’m not the only one that feels off, am I?” she asks. Tarquin finishes his fry, sitting up straighter in his chair.

She already knows the answer.

“It’s this place,” he answers. “It’s… old, and a lot of bad things have happened, and when that happens things linger.”

“Bad things.”

“And good things, too.” He shrugs. “It’s just usually the bad ones that are so prevalent.”

“When everyone was joking about hauntings I guess I didn’t really get it.”

“Can’t blame you. You had nothing to go off of - now you do. But don’t worry, we’re all in the same boat. You can take comfort in that if nothing else.”

The confirmation is nice regardless. “Thank you,” she says.

“For what?”

“For getting it. And me.”

Tarquin looks embarrassed, almost, trying desperately to be nonchalant about it. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is. No one’s ever really tried before.”

A lie. People have, actually, a handful of them who mean just a little bit more than the rest of them. They just never got very far. That was all Ria, though. Ria was the one who didn’t let people in, who locked herself away. Who looked for evacuation routes from the moment she opened her eyes.

She doesn’t know why it’s different down here with all of them. With Tarquin.

Ria hasn’t felt good in days. Halfway to bad, if not downright horrific. Despite that, though, she hasn’t been recently dosed with a good sense of fear.

Something in her is safe, here, even if nothing else is.

And that  _ is  _ worth taking comfort in.

―

“You finally asleep over there?” Soran asks.

Besides him, Icarus is both still and silent. Finally. Between them both he was always the first one out, an odd thing to get used to when you hadn’t had anybody sleeping in your bed in God knows how many years, but not… bad.

Tonight had been, though. The past few really. Soran could only watch him toss and turn for so long before he felt compelled to ask why it was happening, which led to nothing good, which led to anger and misunderstanding and Icarus practically draped over the opposite edge of the bed, eyes fixated on the floor.

He was closer, now, drifting even in sleep. Soran could feel the warmth of him, sunk lower, wondering if it would help.

It didn’t.

Usually he could follow quickly enough, but tonight was different. He remembered the look on that man’s face when he had come back to the lobby, something accusatory on his lips. Why, he doesn’t know. But it had been there.

And then… what had he said? Something like, “it happened, didn’t it?”. Maybe it wasn’t that. Close enough, though. Soran hadn’t even known what  _ it  _ was until he had been awarded a legitimate explanation.

He had even looked it up to see the truth of it all, but was rapidly trying to forget it. Useless information was all it added up to be. A murder out in their lovely little ghost town not long after it had been established, a single killing gunshot. A subsequent lynching and the second stringing up of the same man when people didn’t get enough pictures the first time.

Some of the locals still said they heard gun-shots when no one was around to fire them.

That explains little of his own trauma, a split second dose of fear. When was the last time he had been shot - a hundred years ago? He had no idea. The most recent starburst of a scar still sat just below his right shoulder, all the way out the back. It hurt like a son of a bitch, though, a pain unlike most others. They were hard to forget.

Soran hadn’t been scared for himself, though. Hadn’t been in a very long time.

Icarus twitches, the first of what he knows is many. He’s been doing that a lot lately in sleep, never calm for long, restless like he’s trying to get out even when his eyes are closed.

Getting him somewhere else would be the smartest thing. Even if it’s not Vegas, anywhere would be better. He’s not going to leave willingly, though. That’s the problematic part. Soran would have to drag him, if he even conceded to that, and would follow him again if he tried to leave him elsewhere.

He’s never going to just simply listen. It’s not in his DNA.

That could just be rubbing off from him, too. It seems like a lot of things are. Perhaps that’s where the sudden, newfound restlessness is coming from. He’s still twitching like there’s no tomorrow, eyes moving rapidly beneath his eyelids. It doesn’t exactly look nightmarish, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a real difference between that and the reality of waking anymore.

He swings his legs out of bed, finally, close to ten minutes later. It’s too warm to breathe. A walk will do him some good.

_ Will it? _

“Thanks for the cynicism,” he says under his breath, collecting the keys to lock the door behind him. Not something he would feel the need to do normally, but…

Well, there’s no but. He’s just going to.

He’s been almost everywhere in this place it seems, except the locked opera house, but he’s not in the mood for breaking and entering tonight. Besides, a more interesting prospect lies at the other end of the hall where there looks to be no exit. Only a door lies there, ‘PROHIBITED’ across it in blocky letters that are half-scratched off.

He tested it yesterday morning, but didn’t go in. And it still opens the same tonight, too.

From the outside this area of the hotel looks the same as the rest, if you ignore the boarded up windows, rusted up nails beginning to hang loose from time.

It’s nothing like that on the inside.

Soran suspected as much from the outside. Inside the walls are hardly standing, the hall desolate and abandoned. Paint chips lie scattered across the floor, billowing up in clouds of dust when he opens the door. Where the hallway opens up in front of him the plaster has begun to peel away from the ceiling, exposing rotting wooden beams that could collapse at any second.

He knows better than to go any further - he just wanted to see. Besides, if it’s bad out in the actual hotel, it’s worse in here.

There are noises lurking in the distances, growing and echoing in the barren hall. The few doorways left intact seem safe. The ones with loose, swinging hinges do not. He can see things beyond them; nothing that takes shape, but shadows that threaten to do so the longer he dares look.

His walk has ended without warning. Even a few more steps seems like to bring him towards some amount of uncertainty, more than he’d like.

Every multitude of sound is swirling into one sound, creating discordance despite the lack of volume. Faint voices coming and going in casual conversation, footsteps to go along with them. Laughter, a shrill giggle that wanes off into a thin, reedy sounding wail.

It feels like he’s stuck on the other side of a door, unable to see what’s on the other side. But this is it. He can see everything and yet nothing at all.

There’s a void here somewhere, trapping all of the bad things. What’s leaked out has wreaked havoc on the hotel, and yet the worst of it is hidden here, on the other side of an impassable void.

His foot scrapes against a layer of plaster. The wailing abruptly stops.

_ You should go. _

That he should.

Soran backs up out the door, letting the soft yellow-orange light of the hall envelop him again. With the door open like this he feels just as unsafe as he did on the inside, as if he’s letting things out.

It’s closed for a reason.

He pulls it shut, almost no sound when it clicks back to frame. It looks as if a grouping of shadows rush the door just before it closes, pulling themselves apart when they find no exit. Back into the depths of their abandonment they go.

He already feels better having closed that door, but the feeling lingers. That very one that’s been affecting them all, steadily driving them insane.

It is not just Icarus that he should be sending to Vegas. They  _ all  _ should go before it’s too late.

If only he could.


	4. The Sun Still Rises

**Monday, July 3rd.  
** **Sixteen days after.**

The sun is kinder the next morning, Tarquin finds.

Wake up call is at eight, or so everyone said. It’s 7:30 now and he’s already showered, dressed, leaving the girls to sleep as he creeps out of the room.

There’s not anything to do around here except place his staff gently back under the seats for the day and wander until everyone else wakes. No use in eating breakfast - they can all do that together and avoid every elephant in the room in the form of how weird everyone feels being here. He could have sat in bed for that last half hour, staring at the clock until the alarm sent them all into a sleep-addled panic.

Everyone needed to sleep after yesterday. Looking back it didn’t even seem like much had happened at all, and yet…

Regardless, it was over now. There was no ridding that gunshot from his head, no use in trying to picture it as anything other than his own hand pulling the trigger when he had done it so many times before.

Tarquin just had to accept it and move on the way he always did. Quickly, efficiently, without remorse.

He does a quick loop around the back of the hotel, first, and it proves to be much the same as it did at night when he looked the first day they got here. Scraggly trees have managed to grow up into something respectable using the shade from the building, and far back into them there’s an abandoned trailer to match the half dozen in the next lot over, balanced precariously on two wheels.

It’s expected from this time of morning, but it’s still jarring, just how empty the place is. No matter how many cars you see it’s as if they don’t belong to anyone. It’s as if whatever mysterious force unlocked the doors yesterday has managed to drive off every other visitor except them.

Tarquin hadn’t seen a single employee either outside of the elderly fellow that manned the front desk, and the slightly younger but equally grizzled man who stared at them from beyond the cafe’s main counter. No housekeepers, though you could catch sight of a cart belonging to one sporadically. No one running the gift shop, though the lights were always on. No one capable, or at least willing, to cut and maintain the pile of wood that remained next to the lobby’s massive brick fireplace.

You could hear voices everywhere you went in this place. It was finding the sources of them that was the tricky part.

The good thing, truly, about this morning, was how quiet it was. Tarquin hadn’t experienced such serenity since arriving here. The worst of the heat had yet to arrive, too, and so for a moment it almost felt like waking up at the crack of dawn in the city, heading out before anyone else had even crawled their way out of bed. It was hard to find such times, especially in a place like San Francisco, but he had spent years searching. As difficult as it was, you could avoid the traffic, the worker bees in their frantic morning pursuits.

And if all else failed, he could always take to the sky.

He tried not to. That was one of the only good things about this place that he couldn’t take back. He was  _ free _ . Hardly anyone was around to see him if he wanted to go. The sky was always blue, welcoming, the wind carrying him higher and further than ever before with just a simple nudge.

There was hatred in him for this place, but something else too. If only they could get rid of the bad things.

It’s that thought that drives him all the way around the far side of the building and nearly to the road, around the back of the building that’s been tempting him the most - the supposed Opera House. The front doors were chained shut, and clearly whatever access allowed to it was limited, but that had never stopped him before. He eyes the window he saw from the road yesterday. It stucks, sure enough, but after a minute or two he manages to force it open.

Tarquin hauls himself into the room, dark as night. With only the faint sun as his guide he would hazard it to be an old dressing room of sorts. There’s a wide mirror installed on the far wall, a precariously balanced chair, desks and old cases for stage lighting. He carefully steps over it at all, pulling aside the thick curtains that certainly lead into the main room.

It’s even darker, but his fingers fumble around a lightswitch next to the door, and one by one the lights ringing the ceiling buzz to light with electricity, bringing forth an even more golden glow than the hotel’s halls provide.

For a second, the sudden unexpected beauty of it makes his breath stutter to a halt in his chest.

It’s not very big. He didn’t expect it to be. But it’s so  _ beautiful  _ that it doesn’t even matter. He counts a total of sixty seats - ten rows, six on each side of the aisle. It’s the walls around him, though, that felt like a suckerpunch to the gut. Every single inch of them all the way around is painted to resemble an audience of hundreds on two different balcony levels, leaning over excitedly as if watching the performance. Every color of the rainbow, every emotion you could possibly imagine, all expressed on four walls.

The ceiling, too, is painted in shades of blue and gold, little cherubic figures flying alongside birds through the sky above him. He thought he felt free - everything in here seems to embody it more than any one person could ever be capable of feeling.

Tarquin lets the curtains close behind him, taking a few steps to the stage front. It’s just as small as the rest of the room, one lonely red chair in the middle. He avoids it, sitting instead on the very front edge of the stage, letting his feet dangle to the ground below.

It feels like a thousand eyes and none all at once. It feels like he could get up to his feet and actually  _ do  _ something because of how many people are watching.

He can picture the seats filled with people of all ages, sixty of them surrounded by more and more company. He could picture himself sitting in one of them too, letting the ancient red velvet take him back to a time when things were simpler, when he really understood himself. The doors would let him go and he would feel  _ good  _ once again.

If he tries hard enough it feels like he can almost see people sitting in them, now, voices finally pinned to incorporeal bodies. He blinks, and they’re gone.

He feels in a daze, as if having entered another world. Wouldn’t that be the sweetest thing? Tarquin has never been afforded such luxury before and yet he finally found it, out here of all places, the middle of nowhere.

That has to be destiny, right? He was meant to find this place. That has to be the case. For whatever reason someone was looking out for him this morning.

Tarquin ignores his phone in his pocket for a minute, letting the contemplation come and go. He’s not sure he’s ever felt fate in such a way before.

And it feels  _ nice.  _

He pulls his phone out only half-seeing, eyes unwilling to tear themselves away from the walls surrounding him.

**emmi:** where are you?

**emmi:** breakfast in ten

Tarquin sends back the quickest reply he can think of: _ meet you there _ . That’s ten more minutes that he can spend in here with his little secret, hidden away behind locked doors. It doesn’t feel like enough time. This is all he’s ever wanted, to live life wearing a mask, every mask under the sun, and yet still be  _ seen. _

It’s all the more terrible, because he can’t. That’s not how his future is written out. He doesn’t need a psychic to tell him that. He may have been meant to find it, but that doesn’t mean Tarquin is destined to stay.

That’s sort of how things go in his life. He’s accepted it.

That doesn’t mean he likes it. And he’s not going to like it one bit when today’s escapades eventually ruin it, either.

Because they’re going to.

He just knows it.

―

He regrets every single second that Soran leaves him alone to check that the others are awake.

Icarus forces himself not to move. He has to get dressed, yes, preferably brush his hair, get ready for the day. But he’s tired.

He’s tired and he just opened his eyes.

He knows he has to get up, but is still unprepared for how quickly he ends up in the bathroom, knees crashing into the tiled floor just as he hunches over the toilets and vomits up… nothing at all, really. Mostly bile. It burns all the way up.

When he woke, he registered nausea like never before. The sickness he had been experiencing the past several days, amplified.

He hears the main door opening and slams the bathroom one shut before Soran can see exactly what he’s doing.

Which is nothing really.

It can’t last very long, unfortunately for him. He has to get up and function. Someone wants to question it. He can see it in Soran’s eyes, the way Emmi stares at him while they’re eating breakfast, the curious looks that even Tarquin and Ria both send his way.

He should offer up the front seat for once, but realizes he doesn’t care, and judging by how quickly everyone else climbs once again into the back-seat, his offer was not something anyone anticipated anyway. The idea of sitting back there makes him nauseous, too, squashed like a sardine, shoulder to shoulder. He just needs some damn  _ room  _ and this is clearly the closest he’s going to get.

The most contact he’ll allow is Soran, and even that just doesn’t feel right. Icarus has no proper way to describe it outside of a bomb ticking down, constantly hovering on a second before detonation. He feels likened to explode.

The only reason he hasn’t, yet, is because he’s in charge of the GPS today, the phone clutched too-tight in his hand. There aren’t very many directions to give, but he’s responsible for them over the entire journey to today’s destination, a massive crater of some sort in the middle of nowhere, just like yesterday. When he had dared to look it up all he could get through was something volcanic or other before he had given up, deeming the work too tedious. It was just a big hole in the ground. Not much else mattered if whatever they were looking for wasn’t there.

Today everyone was unusually quiet, like yesterday was still managing to rattle them even twenty-four hours later. Icarus hadn’t even heard it, so unless everyone else’s attitude was getting to him, it couldn’t be that. It was worse, though, because that meant he had no explanation for it.

Icarus hated not knowing things, and that was all that had been happening around him as of late. Unexplainable, complicated things that had too many pieces to make sense.

He just wanted to go  _ home.  _ Yes, that was his home now. He didn’t care if it was being invaded, or if they were in danger. He would put his head down and stay there.

He would live. He had to live. There was no way he would allow himself to die again.

It’s easy to notice they’re close even without the GPS, and up until that point hardly anyone had breathed a word. Occasional comments here and there about what was happening around them - that was to say, not much at all. It was either flat desert or rocky and not much in-between. No more signs of civilization than they had seen yesterday, that’s for sure.

The road leading nearest to the top rim of the crater is well-travelled, though. Thankfully upon pulling into the makeshift parking lot there are no other cars to be found. It seems as if the weather isn’t deterring just him.

Icarus really, seriously doesn’t want to get out of the car.

“Alright, split off again, but make it fast,” Soran says, putting the car in park. It feels like it’s been too long since anyone dared to speak. “It probably won’t be long until more people start showing up. There’s another place we can hit on the way back.

“Aye aye, captain,” Emmi says. She’s going to go off alone, and Ria and Tarquin are going to stick together just like yesterday, at least until something inevitably goes to shit again.

There’s no way they’re making this fast, though. That’s all Icarus can think about when he gets out of the car. The crater, from his brief research, is a half mile across and nearly eight hundred feet deep at its center. For them to walk the entire room, check the outer edges, and presumably go into it entirely to check every nook and cranny, it’s going to take a while.

He doesn’t want to do this. They’ve ascended quite a ways already, and as he follows Soran up the rest of the crater all the way to the top the wind only grows stronger, sweeping up dust and dirt into his face.

It feels like it’s getting  _ worse.  _ It would take nothing at all for him to throw up his breakfast right here into the dirt. On top of that he feels just a few moments away from passing out. That would be one way to get out of here quickly.

The others seem to be moving so fast compared to him. Everything is happening in slow-motion. Ahead of him, Soran has stopped moving, or at least he had for a second until he begins the painful process of descending into the crater, one foot after the other.

Icarus has to follow him. Emmi is following the rim at a breakneck pace to their left, like she’s looking to fall off either side, and Ria and Tarquin are headed the other way, angling in slightly.

There’s no way he’s getting out if Soran makes him go all the way to the bottom. He’s light-headed, nauseated, almost too weak to walk in a straight line. How does he get out of this?

He needs to say something. Icarus hasn’t wanted to cave until this moment, but there’s never going to be a better time. Soran will end up carrying him out of here if he doesn’t.

“Soran,” he tries. He stops. Icarus nearly cries out at the sight of him still, turning back to watch as Icarus tries to stumble down the slope after him without falling.

There’s something wrong with him. It’s getting worse. Before it was a steady come and go, a ripple in a pond and nothing more. Now it feels like a tsunami bearing down on him; not something he can avoid. He’s just watching it happen before it comes down on him.

And oh, it’s coming down. He can  _ feel  _ it. All of it, everything, at once.

The bomb is going off.

He feels the sun beating down on his shoulders, too-hot. Burning. It’s the last thing he feels, the last thing he sees.

And then total darkness, but he’s still moving.

―

There’s just a scream, and Emmi can’t even tell who it comes from.

For a moment, the wind sends dust into her eyes once again, rendering her blind for an alarming amount of time. There are more shouts, an entire chorus of them, and she doesn’t even think before she starts stumbling back the way she came, feet slipping in the dirt.

She blinks furiously, willing her vision to come back. It does, finally, though she can hardly make sense of what’s happening on the ground not far away from her. Ria is the only one still standing, a few meters below the crater’s rim. Everyone else is tangled together, by the looks of it, a flailing mass of limbs and an out-of place, too bright glow at the center of them.

It doesn’t make any sense. Soran ended up at the bottom, somehow, and Tarquin is trying to pull Icarus off of him. Emmi is fifteen feet away, ten. One of Icarus’ hands is locked around Soran’s throat - the other looks as if it’s trying to scrabble back to the same hold, but Tarquin is holding onto his arm so tightly he can’t get quite there.

His hand, locked around Soran’s throat. It’s  _ glowing _ . They both are. White-hot, like a branding iron.

And then she smells it. The acrid, unmistakable tang of burning flesh, charring away…

Once again, she refuses to think. She may not have done it otherwise. She dives for all three of them just as Tarquin finally gets an arm around Icarus’ chest and wrenches them both sideways into the dirt. All at once, the glow from his hands dissipates. His struggling, however, does not. There’s no rhyme or reason to it - he’s just trying to get away.

Luckily, he’s failing. She latches onto his legs, pinning them both into the dirt.

“Fuck,” Tarquin emphasizes. “Stop  _ moving _ . Emmi, I got him, just deal―”

She hears the rest of it, despite his trail off. She has to deal with something else, and there’s really only one other thing to deal with.

It took her this long to realize that nothing has happened behind her. Ria is still a few feet up the incline, choking, or sobbing. Emmi can’t tell. Soran hasn’t moved.

When she turns, she can’t tell if he’s dead or just unconscious.

It confirms one thing, at least: it’s definitely not good.

What she can make out as she scrabbles back through the dirt towards him is the horrific mess that is his throat. The skin on the right side is almost entirely eaten away, melted, exposing muscle and blackened veins and fucking  _ christ  _ there’s a hole right through directly in the middle. Everywhere else his skin has bubbled and blistered, spilling hardly any blood before everything was instantly cauterized.

From Icarus’ hands. From his  _ fucking hands. _

He has a pulse. That's the only thing she's willing to confront. It's weak, but there. That doesn't change the fact that he's  _ unconscious  _ and barely breathing and he's definitely on the fast track to fucking dying right in front of them all in the middle of this shitty, awful desert. In a fucking crater, no less.

She grabs his shoulder, thinks better of it as her fingers come too close to the slew of melted skin, and then the side of his face. "Hey, asshole," she snaps. "You have to wake up. No one's fixing you out here but you."

He doesn't so much as twitch. Stupid suicidal  _ bastard.  _ He probably didn't even fight back. If he had time, that is. She doesn't even know what happened.

Emmi would shake him senseless if she wasn't fearful that his head would tear free from his neck. There's not nearly enough holding it all together.

The crying behind her has increased in volume as he’s been looking the opposite way. It's not just Ria anymore. She can hazard a guess as to who's doing it now.

It still doesn't explain anything.

Emmi turns, keeping two fingers on the pulse at his wrist. Tarquin still has him pinned, but he's no longer fighting. He's just sobbing, trying to get a good look whilst Emmi continues to block his view. 

"What the fuck,"comes Icarus’ frantic voice. "Fuck, no no no, what the fuck did I do, no―"

Slowly, Tarquin starts to let go of him. "Don't you dare," she snaps. "Don't let him come over here. And don't let him touch you either."

"Emmi, he doesn't―"

"I don't care!" she shouts. "Just keep him over there!"

He doesn't remember doing it. How the living  _ fuck  _ does he not remember doing it? Did he black out? Get possessed out of nowhere? Just absolutely fucking  _ lose it _ ?

It doesn't matter, really. He's only sobbing, now.

Soran's still breathing but she has no idea for how long. That's the only thing that matters. Fuck the rest of their stupid, pointless mission.

The smell is starting to get to her, make her stomach roll. Ria, who is clearly protesting coming any closer, must think the same. She's not going to be any help; she'll throw up if Emmi even makes her come over here. 

"Icarus," she says slowly. "Icarus. Listen to me."

He's not even looking at her. Through her, really, eyes fixated on the ground, blank. Tears from both his own making and the stinging wind.

It's making the smell worse, too.

"Icarus," she says again. "You need to go back up the hill and get the car. Bring it up here as close as you can get it."

Finally he looks at her. She's seen a lot of looks before, so many expressions in the depths of people's eyes, but that?

That's something else. It sort of breaks her heart to look at before she regains her senses.

"Go," she tells him.

"I― I can't―"

"Right now," she insists. "Unless you want him to die."

She's got more than one motive. One, get him the hell away. Two… she just wants to know that he's back. The real version of him, and not whatever version just did  _ this.  _ That will reassure her that they’re no longer in a catastrophic amount of danger.

Just like she was hoping, he takes off. Tears himself away from the futility of Tarquin's fast-fading grip and takes off, stumbling once, twice, and then back into the dirt before he actually gets to his feet.

She waits until he's just out of sight. "Ria, you too. Look at me.  _ Do not look down.  _ Go up there. Not anywhere close to him. Just wait for us at the top."

"But what about―"

"We got it. Just go."

And there's two. She lets out a breath. That leaves her and Tarquin, slowly sidling back up, and what looks like a very dead Soran between them.

"Jesus," he mutters. "This is…"

"A fucking mess," she finishes. "We gotta get outta here. What the  _ hell  _ happened?"

"He looked like he was about to pass out. Soran stopped and waited for him and he just… went right for the throat. And his  _ hands _ , God…"

It still doesn't work out to anything. He just completely lost himself, unleashed something unexplainable. If Icarus knew anything like this was going to happen, he would have said somethin.

And now everything's been shot straight to hell.

"We have to get him out of here," Tarquin says. "If he doesn't wake up… shit, we'll have to take him  _ somewhere. _ "

"And tell them  _ what? _ " she bursts out. "Besides, there's no fucking ER anywhere around here, there's probably not even a clinic."

"Well, if he doesn't wake up, or if we don't take him somewhere, he's going to die."

"He's not going to die," she decides. God, she'll feel too bad if he dies. What has happened to her? Emmi wasn't even supposed to be here and yet here she is, actively caring about their lives and making sure they still have them.

"Can you take him?" she continues. His pulse is still the same - it's the one good thing in all of this. Everything else seems worse the longer she looks at it.

Tarquin nods. "It's not far, I'll just pull him back up. You'll need to hold his head, though, Jesus, it looks like it's about to―"

"If you say fall off, I'll end you," she snaps. So what if she already thought about it? She doesn't need the image  _ again.  _

Tarquin hoists him up, and it forces her back into action once again. Burnt skin flakes away when she slides her hand round the back of his neck, holding it steady. There's just enough blood, enough God only  _ knows  _ what to make her nauseous. The smell wafts back up into her face, and she commits instantly to holding her breath for the duration of their journey back up the hill.

Ria waits obediently at the top, eyes watering and squinted from the wind, or crying. Icarus stops the car so suddenly at the very top of the crater that it nearly tumbles in. She doesn’t know what she would do if that were to be the case - sink down and cry, too, bits of skin and care stuck to her hand.

The second he gets out she feels about ready to boil over again. Nowhere near an appropriate description for their current situation, but there’s little else to describe it. “Get back in the car,” she orders. “You’re driving.”

“Emmi,” he starts, voice frantic and cracking, sobs still struggling their way free from his chest.

“Don’t,” she says. “Back in. Now.”

He doesn’t, at least not until they pass him with Soran, and it looks like he only does then because he can’t bear to look at it any longer, the evidence of what  _ he  _ did. To Soran, above anyone else. If something that took over him went after Soran, first, what chance do the rest of them have.

“Em, get in,” Tarquin instructs. She fears for the very moment she lets go of him but thankfully, nothing alarming happens. She slides into the back-seat, allowing Tarquin to pass Soran in after her, limp and sprawled out across the back seat. If she didn’t know better, she’d think him dead already.

She better not be carting a dead body through the desert right now.

Icarus glances back in the rear-view mirror, looks away just as quickly. It’s more of a question of who  _ isn’t  _ staring at him at this point. She tries to watch his hands, instead, trembling so viciously that he can hardly keep a grip on the steering wheel.

“What did I,” he manages, voice shaking too. “What did I  _ do _ ?”

“We need to find a hospital,” Tarquin says under his breath, leaning awkwardly into the front seat over Ria’s shoulder. She’s got someone’s phone. Emmi can’t even tell who it belongs to.

Icarus is a few precarious seconds away from a full blown panic attack. His ragged breathing is the loudest sound in the car.

It seems like he’s already there, but Emmi has to hope otherwise. If he’s hitting rock bottom, they get nowhere else.

“Hey,” she says, keeping her voice quiet and even. She stretches forward as far as she can and locks her hand around his shoulder until her knuckles go white. His skin feels like it’s on fire. “Breathe.”

“I can’t,” he says simply.

“You have to,” she instructs. “Or we’re not getting out of here.”

“Where― where am I, fuck, where am I even going?”

Emmi waits patiently, or at least tries to. His shaking gets worse for a moment as he inhales, proving even himself wrong, and then seems to even out into something that’s at least manageable.

“There’s a hospital about a half hour out from the hotel, in Nevada,” Tarquin supplies a moment later, finger still swiping through pages on the phone in Ria’s hand. “Desert View. That’s the closest we’re getting.”

“That’s two fucking hours away,” Icarus chokes out. “He’s not going to―”

“We’re headed back in that direction regardless,” she interrupts. “If he wakes up and he can deal with it, we go back to the hotel. If not, the ER. We don’t have any other option.”

They’re truly fucked out here. There’s no one that can help them, not even anything else they can do except drive and hope that’s enough.

“C’mon,” she prompts. Icarus slams his hand into the steering wheel, just once, but Emmi very nearly flinches away. Ria does it quickly enough for them all. She hangs on for dear life, instead, waiting until Icarus fails three times over to jam the keys into the ignition before finding any amount of success.

So much for the crater.

So much for any of this, really. And here Emmi thought all they had to worry about, really, was finding the stupid thing and then getting out of here. They could go back. She could leave for good.

Now it’s a question of whether they’re even all going to make it that far.

―

The world is never reduced to just one thing.

Whoever says that is a liar. Everyone tries to. It’s easier to only feel one thing, to recognize one thing, to properly absorb just  _ one _ thing. Everything else tied to it gets simpler as a result.

There’s no blame to be pinned for trying. It’s a noble effort.

It’s just not the truth.

And it’s one thing to learn that lesson for the first time; another entirely to experience it over and over and over.

That’s what’s happening right now.

The first thing is the fire. It’s either all around him or he’s in the thick of it. It’s impossible to tell. The world is burning all around him, certainly, or else he wouldn’t feel this way. The thick, suffocating air, a cloying scent that’s threatening to choke him by the second as he continues to fixate on it.

Something’s moving… it can’t possibly be him. He doesn’t even think he’s capable of moving right now. Hardly discernible, just the faintest rumble. The car? It could be. If that’s not the answer, he has no idea what it is.

Of all things, the numbing sensation is the worst. There is no movement available to him; who knows if he’s even still in one piece. It doesn’t make any sense. Something happened, that’s for sure. If only he could figure out what, begin to remember even the slightest details.. that would give him something, at least.

For a minute it seems okay. He’s not dead, unless this is the world’s sick version of purgatory - a black nothingness, an eventual door that’s going to drop him straight into hell.

He’s pretty sure he’s not, though.

That minute almost seems blissful, in hindsight. It wasn’t good, but there wasn’t much bad, either.

And then the pain hits him.

It’s not a kind, gradual thing. Nothing ever is with him. An onslaught is the only proper way to describe it, a wave that begins in his neck and goes in both directions, all the way down into his shoulders and back up into his jaw. And it doesn’t go  _ away _ ; in fact, the second he allows himself to feel it, it grows worse.

Once again, he goes back to why it’s easier to live in the realm of only one thing. If he had only fixated on the fire, he wouldn’t have felt the pain.

Now that he can feel it, there’s no way to stop it.

He can’t tell if there’s a way to get further from it or if it’s a part of him, now. Not like it matters. He can’t move. He thinks his fingers might twitch, but despite how deep he digs there’s no energy for him to find elsewhere.

Another reward comes with it, however. If you could consider the following a reward. A whole racket starts up, one or two voices at first that grow into something more. He can’t make out a single word. It’s nothing more than a symphony, sound without proper words, echoing all around him. Not nearly beautiful enough to be distracting. Like he said, nothing comes that easy with him.

If he could just move a bit more, open his eyes, maybe he could figure this out.

_ It’s more to figure out than you know. _

_ Oh _ . They’re still with him. Some insane, awful thing in his brain had already decided they were gone.

They must be so far away, though. They’re in his head and even then he can barely hear them. He’s underwater, not fortunate enough to be drowning.

He just needs to wake up. Not that he thinks he’s asleep at all, really, just rather trying to emerge from a fog that’s too thick to see through. He can’t open his eyes. Perhaps they are open, and he just can’t see. Blindness would be a tricky thing to deal with right now.

Can’t talk, either, he rapidly discovers. He tries, but nothing happens save for the faint cracking of his dried lips, an exhale that hurts all the way through his entire body. Something touches his face, the barest brush, faint enough to be the wind.

“Soran.”

It’s the first thing that breaks through, and of course it’s his own name. He’s not dead, then. No one would be greeting him so kindly in hell.

The world around him shudders again, nearly stops. His whole body seizes up. Someone starts shouting again. He hears every other word. Something about stopping, or not stopping. Another chorus of words after it. Hospital is something that stands out distinctly when nothing else does. They’re going to a hospital?

He’d rather die. If it’s him they’re taking to the hospital, that is, and it seems pretty likely. When was the last time he willingly stepped through the doors of an emergency room?

They can’t. He won’t go.

_ You don’t have much of a choice. _

There’s always a choice. He could fix this, couldn’t he, or is it too late? He already feels like he’s fading away. Whenever he’s started the healing process in the past it’s been immediate, before blood-loss took him out first, or someone else got to him. Before he was too  _ weak  _ to do it in the first place.

That’s what it feels like now. He’s losing his grip on the realities of the actual world and darkness is replacing every single one of them.

“Soran, c’mon.”

His attention is sought after. Someone wants him, or rather what comes with him. The desirable parts, however few they are. A voice he knows but with no name attached to it, like trying to pick it out of a crowd of thousands. Familiar, but impossible to place with the growing cacophony.

Not even the most intimate things could save you when you were lost in a crowd like that.

"Should we stop?" a voice asks.

"We can't," another answers.

"The hospital―"

Again with the fucking hospital. He doesn't want to go.

_ You won't make it otherwise, little one. Not on your own. _

He's always known that. Detonation, self-destruction… all words synonymous with his name. That's how he was meant to go.

But not like this. This wasn't him.

What  _ happened? _

All he can do now is claw his way back out of it, but he's so far under the surface and there's no light to be seen. If he can just  _ heal  _ it doesn't matter what happens after. The pain will fade eventually. He'll figure out what happened.

It felt like they were only getting further. The only thing that could save him and he was losing his grasp on it.

_ Please _ , he thinks. There were no more words to properly convey what he needed.

They knew - they always did.

_ We're trying, little one. You're further away than you think. _

They were trying. That meant it was on him. He just had to give them enough of his energy to do so.

He had to wake up. Get out of the fog and the fire and if he could do that, he would be okay. He would make it.

It seemed so simple. It wasn't, but it was his only choice.

He just had to wake up.

_ Just hold on. _

―

There are marks in the middle console from her nails.

Ria had thought, until now, that they were bitten down too low to do any real damage.

A multitude of previously impossible things are suddenly coming to fruition. Things that didn't exist until now are right before her eyes.

It's just her nails. The dramatics she's expressing now aren't necessary for that; they're just the only thing keeping her sanity from splintering apart.

Every few minutes she rolls the window down another inch or two as the smell encroaches into the front seat. There's too  _ much  _ room up here. Her legs can't even stretch far enough and she can feel Tarquin's knees pressed into the back of her seat as she has for two hours now and she can't ask anyone how to fix it, or anything.

And no one could even if she did.

They just keep shouting around her, equally hysterical and angry words that keep spilling over. If it wasn't so childish she'd put her hands over her ears and close her eyes until someone made it better.

Icarus stopped crying at some point, or maybe she had just been unwilling to hear it any longer. The sound was back, though, as Emmi's voice increased in volume, and every time one of his hands left the steering wheel she found herself flinching away. It was a thoughtless reaction stemming from nothing more than pure survival instinct, something Ria didn't even know she had until today.

When it happened everyone else had gone running. Tarquin had been there in seconds, Emmi not long after, and Ria had  _ stood there _ . She would have been the one to survive had things gone south. Maybe the only one.

There she would have been, alone, four corpses at her feet, because of her newfound survival instinct. What would it have mattered then? A drive to survive amounted to little if there was nothing waiting on the other side of it.

She wanted to run. Ria would rather open the door and risk tumbling into the dusty road than be in here another second.

She needed to be better than this.  _ More.  _ That's what Muelara had repeated to her over and over like a mantra. Ria wasn't able to get it done up there, but down here things could be different.

There's no doing anything now, but she can keep her wits about herself. Breathe in and out, don't inhale too deeply. They passed the hotel ten minutes ago. Nineteen more until they get to the hospital according to the GPS. That's nineteen minutes for something to turn around.

And her, too. She needs to offer something. Her help, for one, or some comforting words Whatever that even means.

One last inhale of the fresh air streaming in through the window and she peers over her shoulder, eyes squinted halfway and fixated somewhere above Soran's head. The advice that came from Emmi is golden - under no circumstances can she look down.

A valiant effort is made, at least. She tries to look anywhere else, but her plan is quickly thwarted by the fact that Soran's eyes are  _ open. _

Ria inhales so fast she goes dizzy, smells it too thoroughly again, and nearly retches. She thinks  _ oh no, he's dead  _ and then he  _ blinks.  _ Not at her but right through her, slow and unseeing.

"Emmi," she says faintly. She looks down.

Big mistake.

She nearly rams her head into the window she spins back around so fast. Someone swears behind her.

"Shit, fuck, you need to  _ stay awake _ ," Emmi snaps. Icarus looks back, too. "Hey, hey, look at me. Can you heal yourself?"

The brakes squeal just before the car skids to a stop in the middle of the road and nearly fishtails into the ditch. The force of the seatbelt as it locks and catches her nearly caves her chest inward.

Ria wants to look back so desperately. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" Emmi shouts. "You can't just―"

"What do you want me to do?" he yells. He's turned around so quickly that he's already half in the back-seat, trying to catch a futile glimpse at what's happening.

"Keep driving!" she snaps back. "We need to― fuck's  _ sake." _

They're the last words that should compel her to turn around, and yet they hold enough power over her to force the action anyway.

Icarus is blocking half of her view, or at least he is until Emmi reaches forward and shoves him back and nearly into her. It took a paired effort to keep Soran from tumbling anywhere out of reach - Tarquin's hands on his legs, Emmi's grip on his shoulder. He's conscious, somehow, conscious and bleeding. Burns wouldn't bleed like that, not with how deep the wounds are. Something else just tore open.

"If you can heal yourself, you need to do it now," Emmi says. "That, or the hospital, and they'll do it for you."

He can't be listening. No one is that strong. Even his eyes being open didn't last long. Squeezed shut now, just like hers were a short time ago. She was avoiding it and he's in too much pain to do otherwise.

"What am I doing?" Icarus repeats.

"Drive."

"Where―"

"Just fucking drive!"

He doesn't move. If he doesn't, soon, Emmi won't hesitate to leave him on the side of the road while she takes the wheel herself.

Time is a precious thing and they need every minute of it.

Icarus steadies himself for what looks like the first time in hours. The boldness of the claim is not lost on her. One too-strong gust of wind and he shatters into a thousand pieces, just like that. As if he was never there at all. Her own fragility is, for once, in the very background of her mind.

She cannot allow herself to be fragile right now.

“Soran,” he says slowly, carefully. “Tell me―”

“We don’t have time for this,” Emmi insists.

“Just tell me you can do it,” Icarus says, closing his eyes. “Just tell me, that’s all I need… please.”

The car is as silent as it’s been since they got back in it at the crater. She’s the only one that hers the muffled pleas he continues with under his breath.

He seems to come back to himself with a shudder, wrenching the wheel hard to the side. To the other side of the road, and then back the way they came.

“We can’t go back,” Emmi says evenly.

“He’s fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“He’s going to be fine.” Icarus swallows, not looking like he quite believes. “Just trust me.”

Perhaps it’s the words coupled with the situation at hand, but Ria almost laughs. Out-loud, hysterically, mixed with tears, no doubt. She’s not cried out from earlier. There is no trusting any of this.

He looks so certain that Ria doesn’t want to question him. One, she can’t possibly get near enough to try, or raise her voice to ask, but two… he’s right. She has no idea how that’s possible, but he is.

This is Soran they’re talking about. Icarus wouldn’t lie where it concerns him.

If he’s right, that’s one thing. It says nothing for the rest of them.

And where it concerns their future, it means absolutely nothing at all.


	5. The Art of Falling Apart

**Tuesday, July 4th.  
** **Seventeen days after.**

* * *

The theater is more dull than he expected it to be.

He only vaguely remembers a conversation from yesterday, tucked away in the car. Before everything went to shit, that is. Tarquin had only spoken a few sentences about it. Something about the Opera House, and a loose back window. 

He had said it was nice.

Icarus, both literally and figuratively, has no idea what’s gone wrong with his perception of reality.

The window is still loose when he wanders off in the dead of night. The bare light bulb in the back dressing room is still buzzing away. He had run into the chain accidentally. Out here he hadn’t even bothered to turn on any of the lights. Maybe that’s why it didn’t seem so impressive. It was colorful, he could tell, but he didn’t care.

Maybe it  _ would  _ be nice if anything mattered.

His phone died three hours ago. Not that he was using it. It’s got to be close to dawn, by now. He doesn’t know if anyone else slept, but he didn’t even try. His eyes, at this point, are glued open, the horror imprinted on them so he has to see it even when he tries not to. That’s all he’s been doing since he crawled through the window and made a home in one of the audience’s red velvet seats. Just tried not to think.

For a while it had worked as it was meant to. Dissociation above all else was easy.

The images came back gradually, like he was uncovering old photographs. Icarus thought the best part would be not remembering. His brain can only recall that sick sensation, the lingering dread. He had thought, in his few last steps towards Soran, that he might collapse, or even die. Something deserving and dramatic enough for only him.

What had actually happened, he had no idea. Tarquin had said something else too, but that had been after they got back. Something about a scream. He had no idea who it had come from, even, but that was what had spurred him into action.

Somehow, without having any recollection at all, Icarus knew the noise hadn’t come from him. With knowing that came the harsh reality of it being Soran. No matter how desperately he tried to produce the noise in his head his brain refused to cooperate. It was saving him from something. That wasn’t something you unheard.

It was him, his hands, whatever he had unleashed… all of it combined had done that to him.

Icarus had nearly killed him.

The begging and pleading of yesterday already seems distant as well. For all he knows, he’s been in here for days. It hadn’t been Soran’s voice that had answered him yesterday but the spirits, all the way in the back of his head. They said he would be okay. Icarus had chosen to believe them when he turned around and sped in the direction of the hotel.

But if it’s been hours, days, even, then Soran may be dead. The others are just biding their time, waiting to tell him. If they’re smart, they’ll have just left.

That’s what he deserves, now.

Icarus hadn’t even seen him since they had got back yesterday. Mostly Emmi’s doing, from what he recalls, and likely for the best. Wherever the verge had been from totally normal, useless human being to untrustworthy creature, he wasn’t sure, but the gap had been crossed. He had practically tumbled head-first to the other side.

In a span of one day he had become the worst thing here by a long-shot.

From what he could tell so far it was a fluke, too. He had been here forever, now, and couldn’t make his hands do it again. No matter how many times he tried, clenched his hands into fists, tried to feel any sort of power thrumming just beneath the surface, nothing had happened.

He hadn’t been trying yesterday, either. He had only been afforded the quickest glance at them in the second Tarquin had finally tore him off of Soran, a white-hot glow that appeared to be trapped underneath his skin, and then all at once it had dissipated like it had never been there.

His hands, still, were unmarred. He could still see how mangled Soran was just from a few seconds of it, and yet he was unmarked? It was  _ inside him.  _ It didn’t make any sense.

Thinking about it has yet to help, and it surely won’t start now.

With some amount of difficulty, piece of piece he unloads his brain and wills it to empty. It’ll be better that way - for everyone. He sags back in the chair, fixates solely on the lone, larger one up on stage.

That’s it. Just the chair. Nothing else exists.

It’s some time before anything else interrupts him, and it comes in the form of a flicker to the right of the stage. Icarus chooses to ignore it until it steps directly in his line of vision. 

There goes the chair.

“Hey,” Tarquin says.

They’re liars. He knew it. Icarus knew it all along.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“What?” Tarquin asks, clearly alarmed. “No, he… he’s fine.”

“Fine,” Icarus echoes.

“Relatively speaking,” Tarquin answers. He takes a few steps down the center aisle, placing a wrapped sandwich and a water bottle on the precarious edge of the chair just in front of him. Icarus hasn’t put anything in his body in nearly twenty-four hours but hardly feels it anymore.

“The healing is going well,” he continues. “At least from what we can tell. His breathing is a lot better.”

“Awake?”

“Not yet. Hopefully soon.”

It doesn’t get any better when he wakes up. The silence from the spirit end of things confirms that. He thought they were staying quiet because they had lost him, but it’s just because of the pain. Soran’s in turmoil, an in-between state, and they’ve followed. He’s done that to them all.

Tarquin reaches forward and places the bottle in his lap. A silent request. He has to drink something, even if he is going to participate in a hunger strike.

He uncaps it and takes a slow, careful sip while Tarquin clambers over the seats in front of him and then takes a seat beside him, sinking just as low into it until their shoulders are nearly touching. A bad move, he thinks, or a very dumb one. Anyone near him right now is asking for it unless the smallest sip of water in the universe can quell whatever hellfire is growing inside of him.

He treasures the silence that stretches between them while he stares at the chair again. This is all the space he’s being given before things pick back up.

Icarus’ time is running out.

“I don’t know what happened,” he says quietly.

“That makes all of us.”

“It felt like I was falling,” he supplies. “Falling, and then I saw him… and then you were pulling me off of him."

Nothing more than even breathing continues off to his right. Of them all Tarquin looks the least affected. Ria won't come near him even today, he's sure, and Emmi's horrified anger has been bordering on wrath-like, at least when he last saw it. Tarquin and his unrestrained panic in the park have somehow morphed into  _ this _ .

Slowly, he turns his arm over, exposing an angry, blistered patch of red just below his elbow. Icarus stares.

Tarquin, however, has yet to break contact from the front of the room. "It was just a millisecond after I got a hold of your left arm. You didn't even grab onto me."

"And I…"

"It's fine," he continues quickly. "It doesn't even hurt that bad. But it was a result of your hand just  _ barely  _ brushing against my arm. That's all it took."

Not just a surface wound, either. There's visible, lasting damage.

"That's how I know you don't remember doing it," Tarquin says. "One, you wouldn't hurt him any other way. Two, you're not some unfeeling robot that wouldn't feel bad about hurting me just because you hurt him worse. You would have asked."

"You seem really sure about that."

"Tell me I'm wrong, then." Tarquin shrugs. He can only wish that he was on that level of uncaring. It's enviable.

"I'm not sure it matters what you think," Icarus says, swallowing away the lump in his throat. "I still nearly killed him. Nothing changes that."

"Big difference between you doing it intentionally or not."

That fact will be proven or not once Soran wakes up.  _ When  _ he does. Icarus can see it coming already - he's not going to care. Soran has been inches away from death for too many years now. This isn't any different to him, but to Icarus, who nearly took the life out of him with his bare hands…

Well, it's all the difference in the world.

"Emmi won't let me near him."

"She knows you didn't mean it."

"Does she?" he asks, resenting the bitterness in his own voice.

"She came to terms with it the same way I did. We  _ know _ , okay. Whatever's going on, we'll figure it out. We're all exhausted and freaked out but we'll get there."

Icarus is so exhausted he could cry and has been for days. If only he wasn't cried out, living with his eyes permanently wide-open.

He doesn't deserve to exist any other way right now. That doesn't mean the others have to live in the same state.

"You should go to sleep," he suggests.

"Someone has to stay with him. Emmi's just as tired, and you know… you know leaving Ria with him isn't going to end well."

He was dreading this moment.

"I'll do it," he offers. "Both of you can go to sleep."

"You don't have to."

"You're disproving the whole trust theory even though it just came out of your mouth," Icarus points out. Not that it's unjustified. Icarus doesn't trust himself either at the moment.

"That's not what I meant and you know it. Self-deprecation isn't a good look on you."

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. There's his lesson in daring to think he belonged in such a category in the first place.

He leans back in the chair, this time as low as he can get. "I'll do it," he repeats.

"You won't hurt him again."

No, he won't. Not today at least. He doesn't feel weakened or energized either way - just hollowed out. He's the open wound here, now, and there's no way to hurt anyone but himself when he feels like that.

"You're sure?" Tarquin asks.

"Go to sleep."

"I might just sit in here for a bit longer. Or take a walk. Clear my head, you know. And then I will."

He nods. His knees pop when he stands, legs creaking as if they could snap in two at any moment. There's no telling if he can even keep food down, but he takes the sandwich, a hopeful promise for later, and the water too.

Tarquin rests his head on the chair-back. "I told you it was nice in here."

He sighs. "I hate it."

A huffed, low little laugh. "Figured."

He's not in much of an appreciative mood. Maybe another day, another time…

Icarus is glad it's nice, even if it isn't for him.

"This has never happened before, right?" Tarquin asks after him. "Not any of the other times you've been alive?"

"No."

"Got it."

"Why?"

"If I can't sleep, I'll think about it some more," he murmurs. "Like I said, we'll figure it out."

Icarus can only hope. Or does he? If the answer is going to be worse, he doesn't think he wants it. He'd rather leave while he still can, before he does something they can't come back from. He fought so hard to stay, for a chance at an actual life, but that may not be possible anymore.

If it's better for them, he might just not get that.

They're worth that, he knows. If it means his hands have no more blood on them, it's worth giving up himself.

It's a feeling he knows has never existed in him before. Everything is changing and shifting.

He's a different person now.

There's no going back from that.

―

Emmi tries her best not to move.

She hardly has for the better part of eight or nine hours now. Pins and needles are not even close to what she feels in her legs anymore

Tarquin having left her leaves little choice in the matter. She's sure he'll find Icarus eventually unless he's wandered off blindly into the desert, but his absence means her presence is all the more important.  _ Someone  _ has to watch him. With everyone else gone the responsibility rests solely on her shoulders.

As awful as it sounds she doesn't even want to look at him again. She has to, checking to make sure that he's still breathing, but she hasn't been anywhere close to him in nearly two hours. At that point the mangled melted tear in his throat had been clearly sealed as muscle and skin began to knit back together.

The last real look she had at him was when they got him back here in the first place. An entire process, from what she remembers of the frantic blur it had been. Sending Ria ahead into the hall to make sure no one was lurking about, keeping Icarus away from him, still. Just trying to stitch everything back into something that had resembled what they had the day before.

Her attempt was no good. Not even  _ close _ .

It has to be over soon. Emmi isn't sure she can handle much more of it.

He's okay for now, though. Still and silent but he's alive, which is more than can be said for a lot of people. A practical miracle if she's being honest. Nobody is meant to survive what he has.

They're the same in that respect. Unwilling creatures on the run from their own demise.

He'll be okay for a few minutes, though. She just needs some fucking air. There's nothing wrong with the kind in here - it doesn't reek of something just shy of death anymore, but outside would be better.

There's no feeling free for her, but outside right now is the closest she'll come.

Besides, if she's going to cave, Emmi is going all or nothing. Totally, wholly, without reservation.

She takes her phone and locks the door behind her.

Everything will be okay for a few minutes.

Emmi is already dialing the phone number before she’s even outside. The sunlight at this time of morning is still weak behind the clouds, not yet burned away. It’s too early for anyone in their right mind to answer, but this is a special exception. She takes a seat in one of the ancient metal chairs along the front patio and waits patiently.

Emmi is not a very patient person, however, and has already gnawed her lip bloody by the time the line picks up on the other end. She forces herself to stay quiet, as still as silent as she knows Soran still is, and listens to the soft sounds of her breathing on the other end of the line.

She pulls the phone away at thirty-seven seconds, having convinced herself she was hearing things. The line is still active.

“Happy fourth,” she says evenly. What an awful way to start things.

And not in the least bit something that Arwen deserves.

“Is this really how we’re going to do this?” Arwen asks.

She swallows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play stupid.”

“I miss you,” she admits. The longing has gotten so much worse in the midst of all this  _ shit.  _ “Is that such a crime?”

“Then come home.”

If she could, if Emmi could pick up and leave without repercussions or without feeling bad, she just might. She would drag Ria back by the collar if that’s what it took and slip back into the city as if she had never left at all. This was never her mission.

“I can’t,” she says softly. 

“Emmi―”

“I’m not in the city anymore,” she tells her.

“Really appreciate the lies.”

“I’m serious.” She’s trying to be more and more often these days. “We… I got out. Later that night.”

There’s a lengthy pause. Arwen’s breath is no longer sleep-addled or slow. Emmi’s fault. Turns out she’s getting better at ruining things in this day and age, even more-so than she was way back when.

“You said we,” Arwen notices.

“Sure did.”

“The five of you…”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. She’s gotten even worse at explanations than she thought. Bad openings and even more terrible middles. Emmi can’t even begin to imagine how disastrous the end is going to be if this is what she’s come up with so far.

“It’s a lot to explain,” she continues.  _ And there’s no way I have the energy for it _ , she doesn’t add. Best not to relay the horrors of the past day. “I just wanted to let you know that I was okay. And to know that you were okay, too.”

“I’m fine.”

She expects more. Doesn’t deserve it, and doesn’t get it either.

“And everyone else?” Emmi asks.

“They’re fine too.”

It’s been only a few days, she reminds herself. With the two of them that holds an immense amount of weight. She hadn’t gone more than two days without seeing Arwen’s face since the day she met her, and now she’s possibly gone for good.

And she wants to go back. Damn it all to hell, she wants to go back.

“What about everyone else with you?” Arwen questions. Her voice is carefully detached.

Emmi leans over her knees, pressing her forehead down into them. Her stomach aches like never before and she’s  _ not  _ going to allow herself to cry, no way in hell. She hasn’t let herself shed real tears in ages and isn’t about to start now.

Besides, she doesn’t even know why she wants to cry now. Everything is going to be okay.

She hopes, anyway.

“Em,”she prompts, voice softer. She misses that voice. She was the only one ever on the receiving end of it.

“It’s not great,” she reveals, blinking frantically. “But we’ll figure it out.”

“Just come home.”

“Not yet.”

“But you’re going to?”

The purpose of this phone call was to make her feel better and yet it’s having the opposite effect. She sits up at the sound of footsteps scraping their way through the parking lot towards her. Icarus is standing there when she finally does, just watching.

“I can’t promise you I am,” she says. But she wants to. God, does she want to.

“Emmi,” she says again, voice a broken record. The worst part is, it just sounds sad now. How badly does she want to return home, crawl back into bed with her, and never leave. Her chest is starting to ache with the image alone.

Four days. That’s all it took for her to want to return.

“I love you,” Emmi says, and hangs up, dropping the phone in her lap. She wanted a response there, but the idea of not getting one was too worrying. Best to cut it short while the power still rests in her hands.

Looking forward again she finds Icarus, staring at the ground between his dusty shoes, all of the previously off-white color now a smudged, pale brown. He turns without looking, shuffling his way to the doors she had just come out of not long ago.

“What are you doing?” she asks. He pauses.

A long, painfully awkward staring match ensues. She keeps her gaze resolutely forward, right on his, until he crumbles and looks away.

One point to her. She needs all that she can get at the moment.

“Tarquin said you both needed a break,” he says. If he looks wrecked upon first glance, he sounds even worse. It’s good to know that Tarquin found him at least. He’s not wrong.

“So… you’re going to watch him?” she deduces.

“Are you gonna stop me?”

“I don’t know, Human Torch, are you going to try and murder him again?”

His face twists. Emmi, in a rare twist, feels bad almost instantly. “Too soon?” she asks. She just has to keep reminding herself that even though he’s out of control, one wrong move and he kills her, this time. No one’s around to stop him.

“I don’t need this right now,” he says, a sudden layer of anger to his voice. “Or any of this, as a matter of fact.”

His hand, locked around the door handle, is trembling like a leaf in the wind.

“I’m sorry, okay?” she says quickly.

“Why are you apologizing to  _ me _ ?”

“Because I’m not helping.” She really is falling apart today. Who is she, exactly, admitting all of her faults out in the open like this? No one recognizable, that’s who.

He has yet to move again, so Emmi kicks out at the matching chair next to her until the metal scrapes obnoxiously over the pavement.

He stares at it. She watches him.

Icarus sits down so suddenly, so dramatically, that he nearly tips the chair over with him in it right into the wall.

She might have laughed. She definitely would have felt bad about it.

She only wishes that her eyes could be as vacant as his. The horror has escaped him and been replaced with a carefully measured amount of blankness where nothing bad can hurt him, or Soran, or any of them.

A place where they’re all still okay.

Emmi waits until his breathing has evened out once again, until the harsh lines of his face have somewhat faded. “You should sit with him,” she says eventually.

Outside of Arwen, she has yet to place this much trust in anybody. At least not permanently. Icarus doesn’t suddenly deserve it, either, but the situation is certainly calling for it. Yesterday was one thing, but she can’t watch him like a hawk forever.

“I will,” he murmurs. “Just… give me a few minutes.”

She nods, settling back in her chair. Reaches over and squeezes his arm, quickly, just because she can and because he’s not going to hurt her.

A few minutes just to breathe. Don’t they all need that right about now?

If only it was really going to solve anything.

―

The shadows are encroaching yet again.

Each one is an individual strand, darker than before. Like ink, or a black hole, or the desert sky when you dared to stand in the middle of nowhere for too long.

The memory of this place as it was last time is already faint. It could disappear into the wind, if it wanted to, except there’s none here. There are open windows, broken glass on their sills, and yet there is no movement.

He has no idea how we got here. He didn’t want to come back here, either. Bad things are easily detected when you know what to look for, and this place is full of them. Spirits and awful memories and things that should have been more thoroughly boarded up. A prohibited sign on a door was not going to be enough to keep people out.

It wasn’t strong enough to keep everything in, either.

This time, it seemed different. A fog had descended on everything he was looking at. The mist was so thin it made everything look fake. He could sink right through the floor. Walk through any wall he wanted.

Only his brain, whatever part is still in operation, is whispering to him the actual truth. And none of this is.

He feels… asleep, almost. Is he asleep?

The truth is something Soran has never had an easy time living with.

He’s upright, though. Through that same prohibited door into the deserted hallway, having made it no further than he did last time. It’s colder now, though. The temperature has plunged into a territory considered dangerously low.

It can’t be real, then. It would never be that cold in here.

His other options have yet to present themselves, so he tries to wait. He could be hallucinating. That doesn’t usually happen unless there's a good reason for it, though. There had been agony, before, but it had faded off somewhat. The amount of pain he’s in now wouldn’t be enough to produce such a vision, not on it’s own.

So he’s awake, then. Or vividly dreaming. Regardless, what he’s seeing is most definitely real.

If it wasn’t, that would make things so much easier.

These halls are holding secrets better left undiscovered. Things crawling in-between the walls and darkness that lingers too long to be incorporeal. Whatever things reside out here in the desert have taken up proper homes in these abandoned rooms, where, until now, almost everyone leaves them well alone.

Until now. If he’s dreaming, he doesn’t know why. If he’s really here…

No, he can’t be. It’s not logical. Not that he’s known to be a logical person, but there are a certain number of realities he’s choosing to keep close. He was in pain before. Vaguely now, too, but it would have to be stronger to compare to that. Was it yesterday? Several days? He's clearly not awake enough to tell.

Walking as well doesn't seem like something that could feasibly occur, not without incredible risk. The last time he awoke he could barely move, let alone consider getting to his feet. Any and all moving on his part had been accomplished by someone else.

Last, but certainly not least lies the problem of the hotel itself. They were in the car before. He had seen glimpses of it when he opened his eyes before the pain had overcome him.

How did they get back? The last  _ real  _ thing he remembers was standing just below the crater's edge.

The energy swirling around him now is not aiding his quest to remember. It's taking every semblance of thought away the second he begins to come up with an idea. There was a falling sensation, searing pain, something truly awful happening above him. That's where the void was in his head. He had nothing after that until he woke up briefly in the car and more nothingness after that too.

The shadows come ever closer, threatening where he stands. At any moment it feels like they could become something solid. Their malevolent, intangible presence was bad enough.

Instead of bringing him any information about his current situation, the darkness is giving him memories. Like snapshots, ones that he wasn't fortunate enough to forget. Blood all over the bathroom floor - that's happened more than once. Myra is there in this one, her panic so very unlike how she usually is. He  _ had  _ laughed. Her concern was so wildly warranted, a lesson she should learn soon enough.

He would not die even if he wanted to.

_ You don't want to.  _

He has no voice. He didn't before, either, or maybe it's the dream. Nightmare. Whatever it is.

Even if Soran had a voice, that doesn't mean he has the words to answer.

_ You want to live. You're just scared to. And death is so much easier than life. _

It's been a year and a half since then. Since he scarred himself yet again. That's longer than he's made it in recent history. They're right - death would be the easy way out. After everything he's been through that is all he could dare to ask for.

And he can't even get it.

He needs to wake up. He wants to. Wake up and dismantle something that could tear him open and bleed him out for good.

_ No you don't. _

Shut up, he thinks. Just shut  _ up _ . They don't know everything. They can't or else they would tell him. Even this is not something they can save him from. The hallways are getting darker by the second. It matters little what is happening outside these walls. Whatever lies in here is far more powerful.

_ Fight back against it, then. _

Fight back… he didn't before. Against whatever happened. The pain had been too much but something else had held him back too.

Something  _ more. _

There's only one way to win against what he's going through now. The simple act of opening his eyes can end this. Pain will be his reward - it always is.

Soran opens his eyes for real and the world around him does not change.

If anything, it grows sharper. More  _ real _ . He's actually here in the dilapidated halls, feet lost amidst broken glass. The air is thick and suffocating. Every single breath hurts so bad it's almost enough to bring him to his knees.

For the first time in a long time, something around him is so vehemently  _ wrong  _ that he can't even place it.

He doesn't remember getting here, or what has happened in his last hours. Nothing of what transpired before either. But he's  _ here _ , alive and awake, certainly, but so wildly unsafe he can feel it as if it's a tangible thing.

_ Go. _

He can't move.

_ Now. _

That doesn't help, surprisingly.

It's a vicious circle. The shadows encroach. They always will.

This time he may just go down with them.

―

Tarquin's walk does not last very long.

Unfortunately for him.

His intentions were clear enough. Find Icarus, because Emmi certainly wasn’t making any moves to do so. Ask him a massive, potentially very worrying favor. After that it became unclear. Tarquin would then wander until his eyes grew too heavy and his feet struggled to lift out of the dirt. Only then would he fall asleep, free from nightmares.

He doesn’t quite make it that far.

Emmi fiddling about with her phone for the better part of the night had inspired him, or at least he had allowed himself to believe it. He doesn’t realize he’s foolishly left his phone in the hotel room until he’s sitting alone in the Opera House with nothing better to do. The notifications have been turned off for some time, now, but one message wouldn’t hurt. One call out into the universe just to let them know he was okay.

Noelani would be upset, but she would get over it. Given what she had found out about him so far, she could handle just about anything. That’s all Tarquin had any desire for now. Just a little bit of understanding.

He skirts the whole building back to the lobby and spends far too long staring at the ancient phone perched on-top the desk. There’s no one watching it, as there never seems to be.

As terrible as it sounds, it’s a more tempting option than going to retrieve his phone.

His attempt is quickly thwarted by the appearance of a housekeeper, the first of her kind. So early in the morning her presence does just enough to wake him and send him skittering back, all the way down the hall.

It’s obvious from very far away that something is wrong. The door at the end of the hall is open - it never has been before. He knows what  _ prohibited  _ means. It looks like a careless action, like someone wandered in and couldn’t be bothered to conceal what’s inside.

He passes both doors where people should hopefully be sleeping, his feet sinking into the carpet. Just before the door it turns into unforgiving concrete, harsh underfoot.

Despite how oddly still it feels there is air seeping out from the foot of space the open door is left, dank and almost rotting. The temperature has dropped a near impossible amount of degrees in seconds.

Before he even pushes the door in further something is creaking ominously. There’s nothing more than a whisper of a threat, but that’s all it takes.

Someone is in there. The silhouette is dark and harsh against the tattered walls, back facing. For a long moment, with the odd wavering light in the hall, it doesn’t even look like a person.

He was trying to deny it from the get-go, but Tarquin knows who it is.

“Soran,” he says, trying to quell some of the alarm in his voice. It looks like he twitches, a wordless response to Tarquin’s inquiry. Initially it’s a relief to see him up on his feet, but he’s not all there. There’s no way it’s possible. He has yet to actually move, looking firmly ahead.

Tarquin resists the urge. Whatever resides further down the hallway does not want them here. He’s not about to invite it in.

He stretches forward, broken glass crunching underfoot, and wraps a gentle hand around his arm. “Hey,” he says. “You with me?”

He is. Tarquin watches him glance down at his hand, almost twist over his shoulder to look at him before his throat protests. It still needs more time.  _ He  _ needs more time. He’s shaking just enough to be perceptible from the strain of being upright in such a state. That, or there’s another force is at work here, trying to wreak havoc.

It is, he’s sure, but it hasn’t gotten to them yet.

Not that it explains anything going on, but they’re both still standing, breathing. Soran shouldn’t be out here in the first place. Whoever was watching him… how did they let him go like this? How did he make it this far when he’s hardly moving now?

“Can you walk?” he asks. He could, clearly, but Tarquin doesn't trust his legs anymore.

No answer. So he’s still not talking, either.

Tarquin chances a glance down the hall. The shadows are still gathering, but a breeze rustles in when he clenches his hand and scatters some of them.

“If you can, just back up to me,” he says. “Don’t turn around.”

Soran’s legs hold when he shuffles back but there’s no telling how long it will last. He waits until they’re together to ease around him, a barrier in front of whatever nightmares lurk down the hall beyond where they can see.

He allows his hand to slip off Soran’s arm. “Keep going. I’ll be right behind you.”

He cannot look away from this. You look away, that’s when it comes after you. It feels like a rule even though it’s something he’s never heard before. Intuition is the only thing Tarquin has left to cling to.

The balance between keeping his eyes forward and listening for the slow footsteps behind is one he puts effort into like nothing before. The shadows have depleted somewhat since the initial blast of wind he sent down there, and eventually he hears nothing else behind him. Tarquin doesn’t hesitate - he back-pedals as quickly as he can until the carpeted hallway is beneath his feet once again, and then reaches for the door. It shakes when he slams it shut and then  _ continues  _ to shake even after, as if someone is beating against it from the other.

It’s rare that he’s so eager to get away from something, but he is now, and he nearly backs up into Soran. He’s already halfway to the ground, trying and failing to clutch onto the doorway to bring himself back up.

He slips an arm under him, bringing him back up to something resembling his full height. “What the hell were you doing?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember getting there.”

Tarquin didn’t expect an answer back. He just needed to say it. The sound of Soran’s voice makes him wince. It’s hoarse, each word so pained that it looks like he’s working around thorns.

And well, that’s not good. And that’s also an underestimation. He wandered off on his own and also doesn’t remember doing it.

He expected it, but something akin to anger rises in him when he opens the door to room twenty-four and finds no one there waiting. No one in their right mind would have let him wander off on his own, delirious and out of his mind. Everything is worse because of it. Whoever was in here just left - it doesn’t matter if it was Emmi or Icarus. They shouldn’t have.

Soran seems already half-asleep again by the time he sets him down on the edge of the bed, and he’s properly out within seconds. Tarquin still waits until the last signs of stirring fade off before he, appropriately storms off, aware of how hypocritical it is immediately.

He finds both of them outside in identical chairs, clinging to the last of the shade as the sun begins to rise. Icarus turns to him, clearly confused, but Emmi doesn’t even give him the honor.

“What the fuck?” he asks flatly.

Only then does Emmi look up at him with the audacity of an eye-roll. “Is the sleep deprivation getting to you?”

“You fucking left him alone?”

“He’s fine.”

“He’s not― Jesus Christ, Em, he just wandered off when someone left him alone for longer than five minutes and didn’t even remember doing it. You can’t leave him alone.”

Icarus has already risen to his feet - had when he wasn’t even halfway through his sentence. His eyes are very wide, clearly concerned. Tarquin had thought nothing of letting him go because he knew what Icarus was going to do.

Or so he thought. It definitely didn’t involve sitting out here.

“Is he―”

“Asleep, again,” he interrupts. “I don’t care at this point if I have to watch him twenty-four-seven, but for the love of God, if that’s the case, let me know. And I’ll do it.”

“No,” Icarus says quickly. “No, I should have―”

“Yeah, you should have,” Tarquin says. Aware that he’s being too harsh, but he doesn’t care. There’s an entire list forming in his head of what could have happened. Something’s wrong in that abandoned hall, something that could hurt people. Soran could have blacked out in there and never came out.

Icarus, predictably, bolts. All the way around Tarquin and back into the hotel.

Tarquin takes a deep breath, clenching his fists. All he has to do is trust it.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Emmi insists. “I shouldn’t have left him.”

There’s the apologetic regret he expected from the get-go. Admittedly, it’s nice to see. That’s all he wanted, really.

“I’m just―”

“We’re all two seconds from snapping,” Emmi says. “It hasn’t even been a week.”

He was thinking much the same thing. How much longer can they go like this before one of them falls apart for good?

Tarquin’s not sure he wants that answer.

“Is he actually okay?” Emmi asks. Tarquin nods, rubbing a hand over his face. He is, by some miracle, and for now they’re all the same, but nothing lasts forever. And if this continues the way it does, he thinks that Soran might be the most intact of them all, soon.

He wasn’t ready to fall apart.

None of them were.

―

For hours, now, Ria has been searching for air that doesn’t stink of burned flesh.

She discovered soon enough that the smell wasn’t around her, anymore, but inside her. It was stuck in her nose and the back of her throat, clinging stubbornly.

She had slept, scrubbed herself clean in the shower, and wandered all the grounds of the hotel to no avail, wondering if it would ever leave. It wasn’t until the sun dipped below the horizon that night that Ria smelled it again.

Clean air.

She would have to sleep, eventually, but for now her spot of choice was the lone picnic table that laid in the dusty scrubland between the parking lot and the road itself. A tree to its right would cast shade over her, normally, but with the disappearing light there was no need.

Now there was just dust caught in her throat, gritty on her lips, but it was better than before.

Everyone else had spent so much time inside today, eyes watchful or the opposite - asleep. She had yet to work up the courage to go and sit inside herself. She was doing nothing good outside, it seems, but there was something purposeful behind it. In the back of Ria’s mind she couldn’t shake Muelara’s far-away figure, watching as they all left.

She was scared yesterday, but that was one threat, and as it goes away another rises in its place.

Every car that passes by catches her attention, every moving shape possibly a person creeping up on her from the surrounding desert.

Every danger that she wanted to avoid, and Ria believes they’re coming for her anyway.

Not just her, but the other four too. They were out of commission for now, and she couldn’t allow anything to happen while that was the case.

Ria would stay up all night if she had to. She just had to ensure they were okay here.

A twist of fate that is rapidly becoming more common brings someone else to her over time. She hears the footsteps first as they pick through the loose gravel, and then Emmi clambers up to sit on the table beside her, planting her feet firmly on the bench below.

She looks beyond wrung out. Despite Ria’s feelings on the matter, she at least managed some rest. No relaxation, but she’s not going to be picky about it.

She doesn’t think Emmi has slept since. What is that, just about thirty-six hours?

Human beings, or at least things adjacent to them, need as much sleep as they can get.

Emmi leans back, laying down until her hair is fanned out across the table, knees awkwardly jutting up towards the sky. Ria waits a moment until she follows suit and her toes no longer touch the bench.

The sky is beautiful out here. It looked lost in the city. Every star imaginable is in view when she looks at it now.

“Can I tell you something?” she asks, keeping her voice low. “If you promise not to get mad.”

Emmi turns towards her, eyes tired. “Don’t have the energy. Go for it.”

Ria takes a deep breath and folds her fingers together over her stomach. The heart is nowhere close, but she can still feel her pulse jumping through her skin at the mere thought of admitting it. “I saw Muelara,” she says. “Before we left the city.

Emmi blinks. “What do you mean?”

“You had all gotten off the bridge. I was behind, still, and when I turned around she was there on the other side of the shield. Watching us.”

Emmi lets out a breath between her teeth, but her face is still formed into that same tired, yet composed mask. She has no idea what this means. None of them do. Only Ria has seen first-hand what Muelara can bring down on others if she so chooses to.

“She knows I left of my own volition,” Ria continues. “She knows I left with others, which means I chose not to go back to her, or anybody else.”

“She doesn’t know why you left though.”

“She’s not stupid. If she didn’t realize it then she put it together not long after.”

“Fuck,” Emmi says under her breath. “ _ Shit.” _

She lays her hand over her face, scratching incessantly at her hairline. Her fingers are clumsy - from lack of sleep, or food, or sanity. Likely all three.

Finally, she drops her hand. “You don’t think she’s here, do you?”

“If I know her, and I think I do at least a little, she’ll have taken everyone that’s left and split them to go to all three places we think it could be.”

“Cover more ground,” Emmi mutters. “Smart.”

It is. Muelara being smart was never something Ria doubted. They all got it naturally, but she nurtured their brains better than she had ever nurtured just  _ them.  _ To her, that was what was most important. They came second. Even if it’s what has kept her going this far, Ria can’t thank her for that.

She sees love here. Real, genuine love, and caring, and emotions whose existence had seemed almost fictitious. 

And they were real.

“So what you’re telling me, essentially, is that we need to find this thing, and we need to find it  _ fast _ ,” Emmi emphasizes, punctuated by a long sigh.

“They might have already found it.”

“No. No, don’t think like that,” Emmi says quickly. “They have as much of a clue to where it is as we do. We can find it first. And we’re going to.”

She sounds so confident, her voice calm and sure. It’s enviable. Even exhausted to her core Emmi is still leagues above anything Ria could ever hope to be. This is what Muelara wanted for them all - a life that they could live safe and assuredly. The one they always deserved.

“We’re sort of stuck at the moment, though,” Ria says. Even if she believes they can find it, and she’s not so sure about that, they certainly aren’t finding it now.

“You’re only stuck if you let yourself be,” Emmi responds, sitting up ramrod straight. She feels so silly lying down like this all of a sudden, as if Emmi didn’t spur on the action in the first place. “We’re not stuck.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” She pats Ria’s arm. It would feel condescending coming from almost anyone else, but there’s an odd amount of comfort attached to it. “Get some sleep. We’re going to find it.”

“What about you?”

Emmi blinks, her only exhaustion already forgotten. A part of her seems to sag at Ria’s words.

“You’re right,” she admits. Ria has never been right like this before. “I’ll sleep too.”

“And then what?”

She gives Ria a tight smile. “Figure that out when I wake up.”

She hops off into the dirt, waiting expectantly until Ria follows. Sleep  _ does  _ sound good. It’s early, too early for anyone to be going to sleep normally, but they’ve had a troublesome time so far. An early night won’t hurt anyone.

And maybe when she next opens her eyes, whatever’s in store is something she can handle.


	6. The Moment You Left

**Wednesday, July 5th.  
** **Eighteen days after.**

* * *

From his position on the floor, Icarus watches the red neon of the clock slip past three in the morning.

He had thought he saw the footprints again, those same ones from the other morning. Damp, perfectly formed, small as if made by a child much younger than him. Once again it had looked like a perfect trail leading all the way from the bathroom to the main door, but when he had launched himself onto the floor to investigate, it had proven futile.

His fingers were about to come into contact with the damp carpet, but it had been dry. When Icarus looked up, the trail was gone.

Unless it was never there. With his sanity slipping as of late, he’s beginning to wonder if _anything_ he’s seen has been real.

He wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t.

Icarus allows himself to sit on the floor for some time; it’s a nice, albeit odd change from his position curled up in the chair for the entire day. He hasn’t left since this morning, when he ran here as if chased by the hounds of hell to see if what Tarquin had said was true.

Soran _was_ okay. But he hadn’t been.

Icarus hasn’t looked at him for hours despite the temptation. He even almost fell asleep, head pillowed on his knees, but it hadn’t come like he had hoped. There was no relief for him in sight.

Outside of this morning he’d hardly spoken, either. Emmi had brought him dinner, most of which went untouched, and she had poked her head in just after nine, too. They were all asleep now, leaving them properly alone for the first time since.

Icarus didn’t like that thought whatsoever. It didn’t comfort him. Any moment he could snap and lose it on the one person he shouldn’t have.

That’s not to say he shouldn’t lose it on _any_ of them, but Icarus had to focus on one thing, or person, at a time here. Tarquin had to be wrong. Maybe his brain didn’t care who he hurt, anymore. In his heart he felt bad - the burn on Tarquin’s arm, the mutilated catastrophe that had been Soran’s throat. He felt bad, but whatever was inside him didn’t care. It had made him do it anyway.

Besides, bad was not a harsh enough word. Icarus would gladly inflict that pain on himself before he ever did it to anyone else.

There’s a faint shift above him, and Icarus holds his breath, leaning into the bed. Soran hasn’t woken up since the incident this morning; he didn’t expect him to, either. Still, he’s been waiting anxiously for perhaps the one moment he was dreading more than the next opportunity to hurt him.

And that was talking.

Icarus was a good talker. Great, really, if you gave him the time of day.

He already knew there was no feasible way he could talk about this. If Soran woke up, that’s what would happen.

He wanted him to wake up so desperately, to see his eyes, to really process that he’s alive, but on the other hand…

God, what the fuck is he even thinking? That he doesn’t want him to wake up? His brain is so far down the gutter that he’d be surprised to find a single trace of it left in his skull. Whoever still has sense by the end of this trip needs to lock him in a psych ward.

Icarus listens for another shift, but there isn’t one. His arm stretches up and up until his fingers creep over the edge of the bed, leverage to pull himself up.

Soran _has_ moved, barely. Little details that no one else would notice snap into focus as he takes him in. His head is tilted slightly in Icarus’ direction, now, following the movement of his left hand, which is now loose and uncurled compared to the fist it had been in previously. His legs are curled up a bit, too, rustling up the blanket Icarus had allowed himself to cover him with this morning.

He almost looks naturally asleep. Still slightly too stiff and out of place, but _almost._

Every time he looks at him another piece of his heart gets chipped away.

The worst part by far is all the smooth, unmarred skin that has almost finished regrowing on his throat. It makes the edges all the more worse, where he fried his skin but didn’t quite melt all the way through. The warped, numerous lines of burns will be there forever, all because of him. If he focuses too long, he starts to see exactly where his fingers had been, imprinted below Soran’s jaw and curling around the back of his neck.

_He doesn’t deserve anymore pain._

Icarus swallows down the worrying nausea once again. The spirits haven’t been speaking to him - they’ve chosen now for a reason.

He knows what they’re saying.

And he knows what he has to do.

He gets to his feet, slowly, easing himself down onto the edge of the bed, and then lies down next to him. Three inches apart, at least, moving so gingerly that the bed doesn’t even squeak.

He won’t touch him. Won’t risk waking up, either.

His fingers are itching for contact, but he won’t give them the satisfaction. They don’t deserve it. One wrong move or thought and they have to begin this all over again - that is, if Soran would even wake up this time to heal himself. Maybe this time he just slips away in his sleep and none of them are the wiser. It’s the type of easy death that Soran deserves after everything’s been through, but Icarus is too selfish to let him go like that.

He’s just choosing another way, instead. A clean break is the best they can hope for at this point.

“I know you can’t hear me,” he murmurs, watching his face for any sign of a reaction. “But I’m sorry.”

He’s on dangerously thin ice here. They've been verging on almost two days since. It was about a day and a half last time until he woke up properly, but that was a different use of energy. Icarus was actually _dead_ that time. Soran isn't now, but he was so grievously injured that it might just be close to the same thing.

Either way, he’s due to wake up any time now.

Icarus needs to be gone before that happens, or else he might not go at all.

“I’m not going to let myself hurt you again,” he continues. “I can’t do that. Both of us might not survive.”

If Soran ended up dead because of him… no, he wouldn’t. There’s no way he makes it past that point. He’s seen rock bottom, but that would take him into territory beyond it.

Icarus knows deep down that he doesn’t want to go, but it’s his fear of himself, of this power, that’s sending him running. If the truth is suddenly something he realizes, then maybe one day… or maybe not. He doesn’t deserve the opportunity to come crawling back once he’s figured it out, not after what he’s done.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m… I’m so sorry. When you wake up, I hope you know that. That’s all I need.”

Again with selfishness. Icarus doesn’t _need_ anything.

“You trusted me, and I ruined that, but you’re going to be okay. I know you will.”

Soran’s trust is so fragile, too, and once he has it he _sticks_. This is his punishment for daring to trust something new - Icarus’ hands around his throat, the life almost taken out of him. Why would he ever trust something again after this?

Icarus allows himself one last thing in an attempt to purge the yearning from his body, the feeling that’s trying to make him do something more. He shifts forward, presses his face into Soran’s shoulder, and just breathes. His shoulder continues to rise and fall under Icarus’ cheek, a steady breathing rhythm that’s finally returned to normal.

He sits up, braces his hands above Soran’s shoulders and presses his lips to his forehead for one fleeting moment. It’s not long enough.

It was never going to be.

 _It’s not enough,_ his brain says. _Not enough not enough not enough - you need to do more, fix this._

There’s only one way to fix this.

Icarus slips off the bed and back onto the floor. There was one more thing his hands had managed this past day. He had finished shoving the bag underneath the bed shortly before Emmi had checked on them. Something in the universe had been watching out for him there.

It’s the smallest one they brought, fits easily over his shoulders. There wasn’t nearly enough room in it for all of his belongings, but it will have to make do. Most of his clothes fit inside. The gun does, too. All he needs and all he has left tucked into this one little bag.

Icarus would stand here forever if it was something the universe wanted. He’s heard what they’ve asked of him now, loud and clear.

And it’s not that.

He adjusts the bag, grabs his phone, leaves the keys. They need them more than he does.

The most worrying part, besides the obvious, is that he’s never made it on his own. Twenty years, almost like clock-work, and then he was dead. Icarus never made it.

This time he had to. There was no choice.

It was just him now.

―

Somehow, he knew this time that he wasn’t dreaming.

He had heard and seen things before. Many things. This time there was nothing there but utter blackness save for the voice.

He knew the voice, but then it was gone.

There was shuffling, a quiet but sharp _click._ When he opened his eyes there was fog - so much of it that he struggled to see for a moment.

He _was_ awake, though. Properly, for the first time in what felt like forever. Even earlier, whenever that had been… had he been awake? He thought so but remembering was troublesome.

The voice was indeed gone. _Icarus_ was gone. Soran himself wasn’t so far gone that he hadn’t recognized his presence, close as it was. That click… that had been the door. When he looks around, his eyes fall on the empty desk. One of the bags had been there previously - he didn’t think anyone had moved it.

Until now.

He swings his legs onto the floor and everything spins around him; he pushes on, grabbing the wall until he’s on his feet despite how unsteady they are.

_Take it easy._

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he forces out, bringing a hand to his throat. Whatever had happened to it has healed almost entirely, leaving behind only a dull, throbbing ache. His voice is still hoarse and grating even to his own ears.

He struggles with the lock on the door three times over before realizing it’s not locked at all, stumbling into the hall. Another door shuts, not so distantly. The one leading outside. He can feel the breeze even from here.

It’s difficult following along when his brain still feels like soup. Normally he doesn’t move so urgently. He allows himself to wake up and process his situation before he comes anywhere close to moving.

Whatever situation is transpiring now, if there’s one at all, is different. Soran turns the corner in time to catch the outside door just before it closes. Something is definitely happening. With how long it took Soran to get up, for Icarus to only have made it this far…

He’s hesitating. Something is worth hesitating for.

Soran keeps a hold of the door while he steps into the stifling air. It’s pitch black outside, but somehow still hotter than hell itself.

Icarus is halfway across the lot but not getting anywhere fast, feet dragging through the dirt, head down. He has the backpack.

That only means one thing, really.

Soran fixates all of his time into gathering every single bit of air he can manage. “Where the hell are you going?”

It’s nowhere near the volume he could raise his voice to normally. Pitiful, really. Icarus whirls on him, though, nearly tripping on nothing but the air itself, eyes almost comically wide. In a few short seconds he’s crossed nearly three quarters of his traversed distance back to Soran before he stops himself, feet stuttering to a halt.

There’s less than ten feet between them but it feels like miles.

It only takes half a dozen times before Icarus opening and closing his mouth like a fish actually gets them anywhere. “You’re… you’re awake.”

Of all the things to say.

Soran squares his shoulders, forces his vaguely shaking legs straighter, and lets go of the door, taking a step forward. Icarus watches every movement like a hawk, but it’s easy to see where his eyes are lingering.

His throat.

“Sure am,” he responds. God, his voice sounds _terrible._ There’s no getting around it.

“You should sit,” Icarus insists. So he’s noticed the weaknesses, too. “You’re not―”

“Don’t.”

“Soran―”

“I said don’t.” He plants a hand on the pillar just in front of him, a comforting anchor. It means there’s only about five feet between them, now, and Icarus’ flinch does not go unnoticed.

Soran brings a hand up to his throat again, feeling for the unfamiliar lines of warped, too smooth skin. The vast majority of them are tucked just below his jaw but some extend further down, too, edging towards the back of his neck and even down to his shoulders. Icarus tracks each maneuver of his fingers attempting to follow their patterns, observing carefully.

“Are you in pain?” Icarus asks.

He shrugs, which proves to be an immediate mistake. Okay, _that_ hurts. Good to know. Something in there still hasn’t put itself back together.

“I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is going at a rapid-fire pace, almost desperate to get everything out.

“For what?” Soran asks.

“I… you don’t remember anything.” It’s not a question. That’s what’s been driving him insane. There is something Soran needs to know, puzzle pieces lost to the void, bits of information that would fill everything in.

They had been at the crater. He knows that much. He remembers walking downhill and stopping because someone had said his name. _Icarus_ had said his name.

After that was trickier. It had been a blur - a _literal_ blur, and then there was a weight on his chest driving him down into the dirt.

He remembers seeing a flare, white light like what people said the tunnel looked like when you died. Something he clearly had never had the fortune to see or else he would have recognized it. For a second the confusion had overwhelmed him above all else.

The pain had followed immediately after. Searing, blinding pain that had sent his vision spiralling, but not enough to see what was doing it to him before he had blacked out.

Not what, though - who. Icarus’ face is there in his memories, blurry and covered in spots.

And then gone.

Which means it was Icarus’ hands around his throat, trying to steal the life out of it.

He knows his face is doing something complicated, trying to work out a problem he has no chance of solving. Icarus’ feet shuffle nervously back and forth before he speaks.

“I’m sorry.”

“What did you do?” Soran asks quietly.

“I don’t _know_. It was like I blacked out, or lost control of myself. I was walking towards you and then the next thing I knew Tarquin was pulling me away, and you were nearly―”

“Dead,” he finishes. “You almost killed me.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Icarus says, voice quickly rising. “I have no idea what’s happening to me, or where it came from, but―”

“You’re leaving,” he interrupts, noting Icarus’ worried stare, the bag still visible over his shoulder. “Just because you nearly killed me doesn’t mean I’m blind, too.”

He knows how it sounds. Harsher than he intended, really. His voice being so grating is only adding to the effect.

“I have to.”

“Really?”

“I can’t live the rest of my life knowing that every waking moment I spend around you, something bad can happen. I could hurt you.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I already did, Soran!” Icarus bursts out. “What the fuck do you mean, _how do I know_? You barely remember, but I saw it first-hand! You nearly died right in front of me, and it would have been my fault. I would have had to live the rest of my life knowing I killed you and I still have to live knowing that I almost did.”

“So you’re leaving to…”

“To protect you. And everyone else.”

“But not yourself,” he clarifies. “You’re not going to find out what’s wrong on your own out there.”

“Then I don’t figure it out. But at least I don’t hurt anyone.”

“But not,” Soran says slowly. “ _Yourself._ Starting to get a bit hypocritical here, don’t you think?”

That’s not―”

“That’s exactly what this is. You tell me, in so few words, that I can’t live for an object, that I need to fix my shit and figure out how to care about myself, but you won’t do the same.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same,” he says. His throat is starting to hurt worse again. This conversation won’t go on for much longer. Conversation, or argument, or an ending to something that had hardly begun in the first place.

He should have fucking known.

“Turns out you’re just as suicidal as I am,” Soran says. “You know you won’t make it on your own.”

“I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“What do you think you’re doing right now, then?” he fires back. This is pain he hasn’t felt in… shit, he can’t even remember. The physical pain was always something he could handle, and he could find a quick fix for the mental things.

This is different. It’s not just his throat that hurts anymore.

“You know what, fine,” Soran says. He pulls at his fingers, feels the ring come free. Icarus chokes out a helpless little noise, but in his unwilling state to come any closer or touch him, cannot do anything about it.

He plucks the ring free from his fingers and lobs it at him. His aim is still good - it bounces off his chest and rolls into the dirt. “If you’re not going to protect yourself, I’m not either. Take it. I don’t want it anymore.”

“I’m not taking it.”

“Then I drop it down the nearest drain instead. Your choice.”

Icarus’ eyes are shining, but he has yet to allow a single tear to fall. The door behind him opens once again with a grating shriek, and a hand lands on his arm.

“I could hear you guys inside, what the hell?” Emmi asks wildly, looking between them. If she seems surprised by his sudden appearance, she hides it very well.

Icarus leans down, scooping the ring down into his clenched palm. When he rises once again there’s something hard and steely in the lines of his face instead, a weak attempt at a mask. Not anywhere close to a believable one.

He doesn’t even look Soran in the eye. “Make sure he goes back to sleep.”

“What the fuck?” Emmi question. “Where are you going?”

He turns around. If only Soran was done yet.

“I never should have let you stay in the first place,” he says after him. Icarus turns a fraction of an inch back to them both, eyes squeezed shut.

If he lets anything fall, Soran does not see it.

“You’re right,” he agrees. “You shouldn’t have.”

That was his mistake. If Soran had gotten rid of him weeks ago, they wouldn’t be here now. They are, though, the three of them alone in the parking lot, though it really only feels like two, and Icarus’ rapidly retreating figure as he turns around and keeps walking.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Emmi says again, harsher this time. “Icarus!”

He takes another few, shaky steps, and then the road takes him in. A few more and he’s out of sight, hidden by the abandoned wing of the hotel.

Just like that, it’s over. Everything is done. His finger is cold and barren, left only with a fast-fading imprint. The voices are gone, as well as his ability to pull himself back from the brink.

And so is Icarus.

―

Emmi has yet to process what just happened.

A few minutes, turns out, gives her nothing. She even wanders all the way across the front lot and into the road, but his determination has already taken him a ways out.

Even if she chased him down with the car Emmi doubts she would get anywhere. He would ignore her outright, or veer off into the desert where she couldn’t follow. There’s no telling where he could go, where he’ll end up.

And Soran, as it turns out, is not going to give her an answer as to _why_ either. 

As soon as she returns from her brief, futile adventure down the road he wrenches away from even the threat of her grip returning to his arm, nearly faceplants immediately into the concrete, and only just makes it inside before she succeeds in grabbing him. By the time she follows him, he’s locked himself in the bathroom and refuses to come out. He’ll either fall asleep in there, eventually, or he’ll cave and return to the bed.

Either way, he’s staying in here. That’s one very small victory, but at least it’s a good one. She takes the abandoned, crumpled map from the floor next to the bed, studying the red scribbles strewen across it.

Emmi returns to the other room, the lamp-light seeming more dim before. Tarquin has rolled over, planting his face into the pillow to avoid it, but at least Ria is still awake, properly dressed, if not tired. She keeps rubbing at her eyes like a child.

It takes a lot of reminding to remember that she actually is.

“Everything okay?” she asks. Emmi’s face must be giving it away.

She gives Tarquin’s shoulder a gentle shake. “You alive down there?”

He nods blearily, not lifting his head. It’s not something she wants to say, but the plan is already in motion. Ria agreed to it. He just has to do his part, too.

“We need to go,” she says. “Just me and Ria. Wherever this thing is, we need to find it.”

“And you want me to stay here?”

“Someone has to stay with Soran. I’m not letting him come with us and I don't feel comfortable leaving him alone here either.”

“What about―”

“Icarus is gone,” she continues, ignoring Tarquin’s startled look when he lifts his head from the pillow. “Gone gone. Didn’t look like he had any intention of coming back.”

Ria jams one of her fingers into her mouth and tears at her nail until it rips free, jaw working worriedly. Her silence on the matter is expected.

“So you need _me_ to stay with him,” Tarquin clarifies.

“She needs to come with me,” she says, jerking her head towards Ria. “She’s the only one who might recognize what we’re looking for, and besides, you feel the same way I do. We can’t leave her here with him. No offense.”

“None taken,” Ria murmurs. Soran won’t use her as a target for his newfound wrath, she’s sure, but nothing good will come of it either. Tarquin has the added benefit of being the one that saved his life, which has to count for _something._ She’s hoping, anyway.

Tarquin folds his hands over his face. “I don’t want to stay here,” he says into them, muffled.

“I know.”

He drops them just as quick. “None of us should.”

“The second you think he’s good to go, call me. We’ll come back for you.”

“You’re not coming back on your own?”

“We can’t afford to,” Emmi says. “We can sleep in the car, or find somewhere to stay, but we have to find this thing. Preferably sooner rather than later.”

This is the part of the plan that truly unnerves her, made worse by Icarus leaving. Splitting off into little groups like this almost never works, and yet it’s the idea she’s clinging to now because she has no other option.

She never said any of them had to like it.

“Whatever you’re not telling me, I don’t appreciate it,” Tarquin says, looking between them. Whoever made up the insane notion that he couldn’t figure them all out is the stupidest person alive. He knew everything then and it hasn’t taken him long to figure out things now.

Knowing when you’re being lied to, even if it’s only a lie of omission, is a precious thing to have.

“I saw Muelara,” Ria reveals, before Emmi has even begun the contemplation, or the act of telling him at all. “I think someone’s here now looking for it too, whether it’s her or not.”

Her fear is lesser when it’s him hearing the words as opposed to Emmi. She never asked him not to react negatively; she just knew he wouldn’t.

Emmi’s not sure who that reflects more on.

“Listen, I know it’s not ideal…”

“If this thing means our life or death, then we have to choose life,” Tarquin says. “Maybe that is the new ideal.”

At this point he’s the only one doing anything to keep her sane. Everyone else is keeping things from her or wearing her down to the bone or just outright _disappearing_ into the night. She had been annoyed initially at the prospect of Ria allowing someone else to tag along on this journey, but where would she be without him? In a mental institution, probably, or in jail with Trojan because she couldn’t handle it anymore and killed one of them in their sleep.

She doesn’t really want Tarquin to stay here either.

Emmi squeezes his shoulder. “If we find it, I’ll call you. Every night we stop I’ll let you know where we are. And if you need anything, or you think we can all pick up and leave finally…”

“What about Icarus?”

“What about him?”

“Should I go look for him?” Tarquin asks.

Emmi has been asking herself the same question and still doesn’t have a well-rounded answer. She knows all about what it’s like to run and not look back. Half of it is the fear that someone will come running after you, the past finally catching up.

Right now at least she's talking to someone that understands that.

"Someone who leaves that way doesn't typically want people looking for them," she says quietly. Tarquin nods knowingly. At least there's understanding there - she doesn't want to waste anymore time with useless explanations.

"You can handle it?" she asks.

"Sure," Tarquin says simply. "If he beats me up, that's on you."

She holds out her fist, lets him rap his knuckles against her own. At least someone here is still continuing in their quest to be reliable.

She's sure she'd have other nominees for that category, but… well, you know.

Things got complicated.

"You ready to go?" she asks. Ria offers her a resolute nod; hopefully the first of many. Even better, only one would be even more preferable, and it's the one Emmi hopes to see the second they find this damn thing.

Ria scoops a bag up over her arm. She squeezes Tarquin's arm again. "Thanks."

"It's weird. Usually I'm the one leaving everybody behind."

"You're not being left behind."

Tarquin smiles wryly. She knows how it seems.

At least he's finding the humor in it.

"Keep me updated," she says, getting to her feet.

"You too."

She follows Ria outside, almost everything to her name shoved under the crook of one arm. Her phone hasn't buzzed for hours. It's the middle of the night - their early start has lined up perfectly with the many hours that her messages could go unanswered.

Still, though, it doesn't stop her from _wanting_. Something, anything.

Emmi knows exactly what she could say to get a response.

Ria, with some hesitation, gets into the passenger seat. Emmi hasn't seen that since the first day they met, just shy of total strangers. Here she is now about to traverse off with her into the _literal_ unknown. They don't have any other choice.

Emmi types out a few rapid-fire messages and sends them off before her cowardice outweighs her courage. It's always fleeting.

 **emmi:** i'm coming home as soon as this is all over

 **emmi:** shouldn't have left in the first place

 **emmi:** i love you, hey?

Everything is _not_ beyond repair despite what the world is telling her. Emmi can still fix this.

There's always time.

But for now, she can feel Ria staring out the window into the dark, watching her curiously. Still waiting, ready and willing.

Emmi gets into the car. It's just the first step.

And this is only the beginning.

―

Ria has yet to ask Emmi where they’re actually headed.

She’s trying to be more honest with herself these days, and she’s beginning to suspect that she doesn’t want to know. The map Emmi brought with them is stuffed into the cupholders, and every once in a while she references it.

To her it feels sort of… aimless. She thought she knew the definition of that word before today, but whatever she imagined it to be is nothing more than a lie.

Her wandering before, her such for something else in life - that at least had a purpose.

They have one here as well, but it matters little with no direction, no idea where to go.

All Ria can hope for now is that when they find it, she knows it. She doesn’t want to second guess whether such an important object could be charading as something else.

Scratch that, actually. She can have two hopes.

And the first one needs to be that they actually find it in the first place.

Once again Emmi unfolds a few squares of the map, eyes trailing one of the larger red circles. In the dark, from this angle, Ria can’t make out much of it.

She brings both legs up onto the seat, relishing all of the newfound room. “Where are we going, exactly?”

“Another ghost town. I think I’ve planned a pretty decent line-up. Not many turn-arounds, mostly straight shots. We can sleep in the car, like I said, or I’m sure we can find a hotel somewhere else.”

There is a line on the map that she hadn’t noticed before, zigzagging through many of the larger circles. Her intended path, clearly.

It’s good to know someone is thinking this through.

“Just keep your eyes peeled, hey?” Emmi requests.

“I don’t think we’ll see it from the road.”

“Not just _it._ We’re looking for others now, too. If they stick out half as much as you do we’ll spot them from a mile away.”

She knows exactly what Emmi is talking about but her mind still wanders to Icarus, too. They’ve left him far, far behind already. Their car compared to his feet… well, there’s no use looking for him out here.

As awful as it sounds, though, that’s a good thing. Ria only has to fixate on one object and one set of people. She can manage that.

What she can’t manage, though, is the same thing Tarquin was having difficulty with.

Ria doesn’t necessarily think she’s being lied to here, but something is going on that she has no idea about. This whole trip was spurred on by her in the first place, but Emmi’s sudden demand to come along is still something she’s stuck on. She dragged Tarquin in, fine, but no one opened that same door for Emmi.

It’s a far cry from that first day spent together. Ria feels safe with her now.

But it hasn’t stopped her from wondering.

For a while she keeps her eyes dutifully on their surroundings as Emmi drives, looking for any flicker in the distance. White, blue, something that _stands out_. It’s nothing but night-black until the sky on the horizon gradually begins to lighten, bringing forth the sun once again.

They’ve hardly talked. Emmi has chosen mostly to focus on the map and her phone, too, which she begins to check more and more as night turns to day.

Judging by her easy to spot frustration and the way she begins to toss it back into the other cupholder, she’s not getting what she wants out of it.

“Should I be looking for anything else?” Ria asks carefully, as if treading water. Not that she ever has. Could she even swim?

What a trivial thing to be thinking about right.

Emmi casts a few glances her way, face unperturbed. Her fingers tap a few times along the steering wheel as she looks forward once again. “Has anyone ever told you how perceptive you are?”

“No.”

“They should have.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Emmi huffs. “Definitely not. Well, for me it is.”

“How so?”

“Because you’re looking at me like you know something, which you _don’t_ , but you know something else is going on. And that’s enough.”

Ria sinks back into her seat, feeling smaller once again. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

Her fingers are still anxiously working away at the steering wheel, each individual tap driving further and further into her skull. Of course she knew something was wrong, and apparently she’s perceptive. Who would have thought?

“Those people in the park weren’t a fluke,” Emmi explains, the words coming out of nowhere. “They’re looking for me. They won’t stop until they find what they’re looking for. I don’t think they would have followed me out here this far, but you never know.”

Ria blinks. “The… the Collection Agency, right?” she clarifies.

“Yeah.”

“I thought they went after the bad things.”

Emmi’s hand finally stills. “They do.”

Something in her is broken beyond repair. After what Tarquin did in the park, after Emmi’s words now, something in her should have a desire to flee.

What is wrong with her?

“They used to only go after the bad things,” Emmi says. “Exclusively, you know? But somewhere along the way they got… corrupted. Now they go after whoever they want. It doesn't matter if you’re evil or not. If the Collection Agency thinks you are, that’s it. No innocent until proven guilty.”

“Just guilty,” she murmurs. It explains Emmi’s constantly darting eyes, how she never seems to properly settle.

She needs to be ready to run.

Ria looks at her- really _looks._ “Your arm…”

She smiles grimly. “See? Perceptive.”

She wanted so desperately to be wrong. Ria looks out into the stretch of desert to her right, but nothing is there. Everything feels more loaded now. If it’s not someone she knows, it’s someone coming after Emmi instead.

What a pair they make stuck in the car together, looking for someone they may never find, hunted by what they’ve tried to leave behind.

“Like I said,” Emmi says. “I don’t think they would have put this much effort into coming after me, not to this hell-hole, but you never know. I’d think they have bigger fish to fry but that lot is impossible to understand.”

Ria nods, suddenly all too-aware of the importance behind her open eyes. They won’t be able to sleep at the same time. She’ll need to sleep while Emmi’s driving so that Emmi can sleep when they stop…

They can do this, though. Can’t they?

She certainly hopes so.

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” she vows. She glances out the window - for good, now. That’s where her eyes will remain.

She knows Emmi is watching her, the wide-open road forgotten. Even that quest is quickly given up, whatever it entails. There’s a scrape as she picks up her phone again, but Ria knows what’s happened before there’s any clear indication one way or the other.

Nothing. That’s what.

A moment later Emmi tosses her phone back down. Nothing, even as the sun climbs into its rightful position in the sky.

Nothing at all.

―

Tarquin has promised himself one thing, exclusively.

He is _never_ allowing someone to stick him in such an awful place again.

He’s seen his fair share of bad shit, alright? He should be able to deal with this. Something about it all has turned him inside out, though, given forth the raw bits that aren’t equipped to deal with _anything._ They’re few and far between, but now dangerously exposed.

Tarquin took longer than he would have liked to the other room once the girls left. Not that it had any effect. Soran had been awake, he’s sure, but adamantly facing the window and unwilling to talk to him.

He should have tried. Said _anything._ His brain scrambled for anything good and found nothing.

Soon after that, Tarquin was asleep.

His current schedule between waking and slumber was a recipe for disaster. There was no set time. He no longer listened to the internal human clock corresponding with sunrise and sunset - whenever he was tired, he closed his eyes. That’s the way it worked best.

It also puts him so insanely out of sync with things that when he wakes up the few minutes after are a complete haze of disorientation. Being so off-course is one of many dangerous things especially in a largely unfamiliar environment with no true safety to be found.

Tarquin has yet to shake whatever had happened just down the hall. There are no words for it, and there never will be.

Something in him is tempted to head back down there, but it’s a silly thought. The only way to make himself useful now is to lay low, keep his head down.

Both things he’s already extremely practiced at.

All he has to do is choose the right path. It’s not _that_ difficult. The sun is up, judging by the light at the window. Soran is asleep now by the looks of it, formerly wheezing breath now at an even tempo. He’s not half out of his mind anymore. Tarquin can leave him alone for a while without feeling too bad about it.

Probably.

Anyone’s hunger would tempt them out eventually, though. Tarquin just caves easier.

The standard man at the cafe looks surprised to see him alone and even spends a few minutes lingering about, presumably waiting for the others to show. Tarquin eats his lunch - early dinner, whatever it even is, in solitary. Forget the others. Besides the employee, there’s not another soul in here.

He takes a load of food back to the room too, along with a few drinks. The looks are almost too much. Holding himself up in a room isn’t going to help any either, but at least now he has the choice.

Tarquin is still somewhat surprised to see Soran awake when he returns. Upright, if not still in bed. He’s just relieved to see that his eyes look clear.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, tossing some of the food onto the bed. That was the other reason behind it. After days of not eating, Soran has to be practically ravenous.

He gives each and every single item a long look over before he picks up a bottle of water. Maybe not that hungry, then. “Fine.”

“That’s it?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Well, someone is certainly in a mood. He expected no less.

Tarquin throws himself back down into the lone chair of the room, and, on second thought, scoops up one of the individually packaged cookies back off the bed. He doesn’t get both of them.

He busies himself with the plastic. “You should know - Emmi and Ria left.”

“What do you mean?” Oh, he actually looks _surprised._ Not an emotion Tarquin likes on him very much if he’s being honest. It doesn’t look right.

“They wanted to keep looking for the thing.”

“Couldn’t wait a few hours?” he mutters, something harsh to his words.

“You know as well as I do that you shouldn’t be gallivanting off right now.”

“I already told you not to push it.”

Oh, he’s in a _mood_ then. Not just a regular one, the type he’s always in. This is worse.

And of course Tarquin has been conveniently left alone with it. Emmi trusted him to handle it, and he _can_ , but can’t it be easier than this?

This information has clearly caught him off-guard, unseated his already fragile state of mind. Tarquin was never one to want to make it worse, and now is no different, but it’s all he’s able to do.

“Icarus is gone too,” he says quickly, fighting the urge to keep it to himself.

It’s something he deserves to know.

“I know.”

“I― wait, what?” Tarquin asks.

“I know,” Soran repeats. “I’m the one that let him go.”

Speaking of information, couldn’t that have been some Emmi told him before he made the mistake of opening his mouth? Certainly it would have saved them, or at least the two left, the painfully awkward trouble of talking about it now.

Except they’re not going to. Tarquin brought it up, but he’s been shut down just as quickly. If he even asks…

No, he’s not going to. He’s not that stupid.

The cookie he chose is abandoned in his lap. He only checks his phone to use it as an excuse, but he’s received nothing. He didn’t expect to so soon. They haven’t been gone that long.

Soran is busying tearing at the wrapper ends of a granola bar into repeated strips. It doesn't look like he’s actually trying to open it.

Just keep busy, is all.

That is all that has been left to them now. They have to keep busy until someone comes back for them, until he gets an update or is desperate enough to send one off first.

Tarquin doesn’t want to be that person, but he can already see it happening. As if it’s been foretold.

It’s just the two of them and the disaster they’ve all managed to create and the utter abandonment left to them in the wake of it.

It’s not much, but at least it’s something.


	7. The Harbinger

**Thursday, July 6th.  
** **Nineteen days after.**

* * *

Once again, Soran finds himself with an insurmountable level of problems.

Insurmountable typically means you have so many that they’re impossible to overcome. He’s not using the word right. He knows this. Every single time he’s found himself in this position before he’s managed to drag himself out.

This time is decidedly different and no one is around to argue the point with him. Tarquin doesn’t appear to be in the mood to argue much of anything. He’s just observing, watching Soran from the very edge.

Another person in a long line of them that doesn’t want to get too close.

Worse, still, is that Tarquin won’t leave him alone either. That was their initial problem apparently. Someone left Soran alone while he was too out of it to properly process things, and he wandered off. No one else was in the room with him so Icarus left, so no one could stop him from intervening.

He’s suffocating. Trapped behind too many walls and unable to find an exit point.

It feels like once again there are hands around his throat, threatening to choke the life out of him.

The world wouldn’t let Soran go so easily.

It takes him a long while to realize that his phone is missing. Well, not missing exactly. He’s ninety-nine percent positive that Tarquin has confiscated it so that he can’t tell Emmi to come back for them right the hell now.

He’s more than good enough to go, but Tarquin doesn’t see it that way. It doesn’t matter if he still needs rest. His legs will hold, his eyes will stay open. His throat is  _ intact. _

He can go.

Truth be told, Icarus is the lucky one. Soran envies the fact that he let him go. He’s alone out there, yes, but he’s more free than the rest of them could ever hope to be.

Likely dying of heat stroke in the desert, too, but that’s the furthest thing from Soran’s problem right now. He may have let him go, but it was his choice to walk out there into nothing with his own two feet.

He’s not going to feel bad about it.

He absolutely isn’t going to.

Soran has not been fortunate enough to learn any lessons on grieving, though it feels like he should be now. A few of them would have done him some good. Besides, what is there to grieve now? Something that barely was, that evidently would have formed into nothing more? He’s gone. He was always going to be. That’s Icarus’ whole  _ shtick.  _ Dying, walking away… it all adds up to the same shit. Same path, different day.

Admittedly, they just found the end of it quicker than Soran thought they would, and something in him vehemently disagrees with it.

It’s not like he can go after him now, with nothing more than a direction in which to look. Knowing north-west didn’t really mean anything.

_ You could go after him _ , his brain supplies.  _ You know you’d find him. _

It’s his brain talking, now, turning against him because there’s nothing else in there to do so. He’s never hated his inner-voice more.

So yes, he could go after him. Theoretically speaking. But doing it is admitting defeat, and he won’t concede to lasting twelve hours before he acknowledges just how wrong he was. About letting him go, about what he said. About fucking all of it, really.

That’s a pill he doesn’t know how to swallow, frankly, so he’s not even going to attempt to do so.

_ Not yet _ . Not yet not yet not  _ yet. _

His inner voice and it’s sudden reappearance in his life is getting evicted sooner rather than later.

It’s still audible in the shower, too, though he tries to drown it out. He lets the water rain down directly over his head until his eyes are so blurry that he can hardly see the few flecks of blood scattered over his shoulders. It doesn't seem like nearly enough to properly showcase the damage.

The nearly non-existent damage that is. He wipes a hole in the fogged-up mirror and with the added benefit of hardly being able to see he struggles to make out any of the residual burns lining his throat.

Of them all that seems to be the thing giving him the most trouble. He doesn't really care. Never has, never will. But Emmi tried to hold onto him like he was made of glass and Icarus looked at him the same way and  _ still  _ Tarquin looks at him like that when he steps out into the bathroom and forges a clear path around him out into the hall.

He's not even halfway to the lobby when he hears the distinct sounds of him following.

They will never let this go.

There's no use in trying to outpace Tarquin literally anywhere. Not like there's anywhere to go. He only has one place in mind anyway.

The little old man jumps a mile when Soran drops both forearms over the front desk, leaning over it just a  _ little  _ too far to get a good look. "You don't happen to have a map on you, hey?"

He looks a bit perplexed. "You had one, if I remember correctly?"

Yes. He  _ had  _ one. That's the correct tense there. He had one until Emmi took it while he was out cold and unable to tell her otherwise.

There's a chance he's more angry about her taking it instead of him, but that is yet another thing he's unwilling to confront for the time being.

If he known he was going to be left here, he would have stayed in fucking San Francisco. Better that hellfire raining down over him than this here.

"Well, I need another one," Soran says. "Can you help me out?"

He's almost positive he can see a stack of brochures in the back office without so much as straining his neck. For the best, because his neck can't take much more abuse.

"Sorry, no," he answers. "They might have a spare few in the gift shop."

He absolutely does  _ not _ feel anger at that.

Absolutely not.

It's anger at this whole fucked up mess of a situation.

Up until this point he could feel Tarquin lurking behind him nonchalantly, waiting for the end of the conversation or something worth his time.

Or, he's rapidly realizing, for it to head south.

Which is exactly what it's doing.

"You sure about that?" Soran asks. He hears Tarquin sigh from halfway across the lobby.

"Sure am."

At this point, Soran isn't sure what  _ wouldn't _ annoy him. Dying, maybe. Dying has never really annoyed him all that much.

The old man is still watching him too, several paces back from the desk. No doubt he's wondering what has changed since the last time they talked. Maybe if he put his damn glasses on he'd see the differences as clearly as everyone else can.

Tarquin grabbing his arm is sudden. He didn't expect interference so soon. He gives him a sharp yank to the right, taking him out of view.

"If you're in the mood to fight, it better not be at the expense of an eighty year old man," he hisses, releasing him. It's better than being treated like fine china.

"Who, then?"

" _ Anyone else.  _ Me, even."

"Careful. The temptation to take you up on that offer is getting stronger by the second."

Tarquin levels him with an unnaturally calm stare. "You might lose, you know."

He snorts. "Yeah, or you might."

"Are we gonna find out?"

Maybe. Not right here, right now. But maybe.

He hasn't even figured it out himself yet. That might be due to the fact that his head may not have gotten screwed back on straight after it nearly got detached from his body via incineration.

Yeah, it could be that.

"I think you'll know," Soran offers.

Oh, he'll know alright. He might even know it before Soran does.

At least someone will.

―

Icarus has no clue where he is.

Truth be told, he's not even entirely sure which way is up right about now.

It’s a sensation he’s vaguely familiar with in the very least. Tumbling from the sky over and over to your watery grave will do that. 

For a while, he was grateful not to be near water. He’s come to discover what irrational thinking that was.

There’s lots of flat grounds. Even more rolling, rocky hills and craggy mountains surrounding the aforementioned land at his feet. A road, twisting through the desert so that each bend is a surprise when he stumbles upon it.

He has no idea how many hours it’s been since he left. Keeping track of it seemed like such a trivial thing at first.

All he knows for certain is that whatever number it adds up to be is a bad one; he’s already exhausted to the bone, having sweated out what feels like every drop of water in his body. His legs feel like lead and his temples continue to throb away as the heat increases. It doesn’t feel like it can get any hotter - they have to be at the peak of it for the day.

And then the sun will go down, and he’ll be alone, lost in the dark.

Not lost, really. He recognizes the road he’s going down. It’s the one they took that first day all the way out to the ghost town before everything really went to shit.

It felt comforting to have something he recognized before that too grew old. That solace has quickly been lost.

He drank through the bit of water he had before the sun even rose. He had no forethought to bring any food as if he was going to randomly stumble upon some.

And, as he quickly discovers when he finally catches sight of that lone little gas station and adjacent, out of place psychic’s shack, he didn’t bring any money either.

Icarus has grown used to the easy thievery of lifting Soran’s wallet, if not something in it, whenever he needed something.

He hadn’t done it this time. In fact, he’s not even sure he knows where Soran’s wallet was when he left. Maybe they lost it in the desert when he….

No. He’s not going to dwell on it. He’ll go insane if he isn’t already.

If there was anyone at the gas station he might just be willing to take his chances on getting something outscathed, but there’s not a soul to be found. In fact, the only car at all is one parked in front of the psychics. As he watches, a half mile down the road, three people exit the building and pile into the car. Thankfully, when it turns out of the non-existent lot, it drives the opposite way.

His options were limited, but Icarus didn’t think he was that desperate quite yet.

Apparently he was wrong.

That next half mile is one of the most difficult in his life. If he could remember all of them, that is. He thought drowning was the worst thing of all, all the pain and his inability to stop it as the water flowed into his lungs.

Once again his limited perspective on things has turned him right back to burning. From the inside, from the outside.

The outside is more concerning right now.

There are two stairs leading up to the door, one of which nearly buckles under his weight, and the whole of the deck sags as well. There’s no blast of cool air when he opens the door - he didn’t expect air conditioning out here, but he was trying to be hopeful. Still, though, the shade is enough to relish just on its own.

The shack, because that’s what it turns out to be even on the outside, is just as he expected. Dark, creaky floors, tapestries and ancient looking curtains hung up to divide the room into smaller sections. There are, oddly enough, windchimes scattered all across the ceiling, several of which chime away as the door closes behind him. It looks like the deserted version of every off-kiltered, bohemian woman living in the middle of nowhere who thinks she knows what she’s talking about.

Footsteps creep up to him through the curtains and he imagines the worst possible thing he can in anticipation.

It really is just an old woman, though. Everyone out here is either old or half out of their mind, or both. She’s as dark as the room around her, making the vibrant purple shawl around her shoulders even brighter.

In one hand she carries a glass of water, untouched, which she sets down on what looks like the only reliable piece of furniture in the room, a table that stands between them. In the other she reaches out with a torch lighter to light the candle beside it. Re-light, anyway. The wax is still liquified, like she blew it out the moment everyone in the previous car left.

She looks at him. Down at the water.

He takes back every single thing he thought about doubting weird old supposed psychics who live in the desert.

He goes for it without allowing himself to think, allowing the cool water to soothe his throat. It might be the best thing he’s ever tasted. Stale, slightly odd tasting tap water. How low he’s sunken now.

“Having a rough day are we?” she asks. Her voice doesn’t sound concerned necessarily, but it’s nice for someone to ask.

Basic human contact is what had been keeping him alive up until this point and not having it was… something.

Icarus practically slams the now-empty cup back down on the table, wishing for the sudden appearance of approximately twenty more. Apparently she’s not feeling that generous. There isn’t even anywhere to sit unless he feels like collapsing to the floor. His legs are so weak already that he might just.

“Sort of,” he admits finally. It’s only fitting that his throat is giving him trouble now. Karma is finally at work. “What gave it away?”

“Long answer or short answer?”

Well, he wasn’t aware both existed. It seems simple enough to explain. He knows for a fact that he’s already sunburnt and dripping sweat, soaking his clothes through. He probably looks like he just crawled out of a portal straight to hell and has no idea how he ended up here.

Which is true, anyhow. He has no idea.

He’s admittedly sort of curious now. “Long.”

“Well, you’ve been walking for quite a while by the looks of it. I didn’t hear a car, so that’s confirmation enough. Anyone walking around Death Valley without ample food or water is ―”

“How do you know I don’t have any of that?”

“Sweetheart, you’ve been eyeing that empty glass more than anything else in this room, and believe me when I say that’s not the thing that usually catches people’s eye.”

He can see that. There’s so much else around him that water is the last thing he should be fixated on. He’s practically dying for it, though.

One just wasn’t enough.

“So no food or water, no vehicle, a backpack that certainly looks full enough. You’re either carrying something illegal, in which case you should leave now, or everything to your name. And that means one of two things - you have a death-wish, like most people out here, or you’re running from something.”

“Like what?”

“Think you know the answer to that better than me, sweetheart.”

“Aren’t you a psychic?” he asks. It feels like something she should already have figured out if she’s so all-knowing.

She holds out a wrinkled hand. The thought of giving his own back to her doesn’t sit right in his gut.

“We’re not doing this,” he informs her.

“You’re the one that’s here,” she reminds him. “Running, I do suppose. Looking for freedom from… anxiety, or worry, or fear. It may just be fear.”

Of course it’s fear. Fear of many things, of course, unable to be nailed down to just one. At this rate she probably knows more of them than he does.

Icarus just knows she’s right. He’s running.

“It’s understandable,” she continues. “Lots of people feel freedom out here. The lack of people, the wide open space, the empty sky in every direction. Is that what it is for you? You look at the sky and you feel… free?”

He’s nodding before he can really stop himself. It’s stupid. There’s no reason for that feeling to still resonate with him so deeply. All he should remember is the falling, and yet…

Something in him still longs for it, even if it’s impossible.

“The sky is good,” she says. “Good, but the water… what do you feel when you look at the water, then?”

Her tone is almost gentle, sickly sweet. Immediately, he gets the feeling she’s no longer talking about that damn empty cup.

He couldn’t be lucky enough for that.

“You must look at it and hurt,” she says. “Afraid for a reason you can’t explain, somewhere deep,  _ deep  _ inside―”

“Is this a joke?” he asks suddenly. “This is a joke, right?”

She cocks her head to the side, oddly predatory. It’s a good thing he’s so close to the door. “You tell me.”

He just needed a break. A few minutes, even. He’s instead replaced the nausea of being stuck out in the searing sun with no help with a different type. She already has it all figured out, everything that makes him tick and exactly what he’s made of on the inside.

He doesn’t even know her name and yet she’s figured him out like she was born for it.

They’re all born for something, he guesses.

“Thanks for the water,” he says, swallowing. His throat still hurts. “I’ll be going, now.”

Just stay nice and calm, back-up until he bumps into the door. She thankfully doesn’t move. He’s acting irrationally, he knows - she’s not going to hurt him, or lock him inside.

She knows things. That’s all.

Icarus pushes the door open, immediately buffered with hot air that makes him want to crawl back inside. There’s no way.

“You don’t happen to have a gun, do you?” she asks. He freezes.

There’s no way. There’s no fucking  _ way. _

It’s nestled so far down into a nest of his clothing that even he had trouble checking for it. There’s no out of place shape, no giveaway.

And yet…

“Why?” he asks quickly. He needs to get out of here.

She steps up to the door. He backs up, down those two rickety stairs and onto solid ground. More dust kicks up around his feet.

“Keep it close,” she tells him, punctuated with a too-large smile, all teeth. “You’re going to need it.”

Despite the exhaustion, Icarus doesn’t think he’s ever taken off so fast in his life.

―

It’s possible that Emmi’s chosen literally the  _ worst  _ place to check out during the worst heat of the day.

She knew what she was getting into when she collected the list of ghost towns into one neat little list, especially this one. The road only goes so far in before the only option is to stop or get your car stuck where no one would ever be able to get you out.

The hike isn’t even that bad. Or maybe it is and Ria’s just keeping her mouth shut. She’s been quite the trooper about Emmi dragging her around and just keeps putting one foot in front of the other, dutifully following Emmi up the virtually non-existent trail into yet another abandoned town.

Part of it turns into nothing more than a babbling stream. They even come across several waterfalls built back into the hillside, water tumbling across the rocks and nearly over their feet. There are enough signs of life that they’re not the only ones to walk this path, but the heat of the day has chased off all but the bravest.

And apparently they’re it.

The valley thankfully comes into view not much longer, a ramshackle town nestled into the largest amount of greenery she's seen in the entire boundaries of the park. There are actually  _ trees  _ all along the mountainsides, a true showcase of what it could have looked like back in the day. Unlike the last there are actually buildings scattered about - mostly intact ones, even. A towering red-brown brick smokestack still towers above it all. Not nearly as tall as any of the surrounding mountains, but a landmark nonetheless.

Emmi watches for any sign of movement, the flicker of an odd backpacker or two investing so far up into the mountains. Ria appears to be doing the same, blinking back frantically against the sun spilling into her eyes.

"You good to split?" she asks. Less people, even more ground to cover.

She knew what she was getting into.

Ria nods, a hand shielding her eyes. "Should we meet back up in…"

"Let's say an hour?" she suggests. "Right here. Take your time looking through things. If you need more we can re-evaluate."

Another nod. She's staring now. At Emmi's phone jutting out of her back pocket and the watch around her wrist. She undoes the strap with some fierce tugging, shoving it into Ria's waiting hands.

"One hour," she reminds her, and descends into the valley proper.

Ria peels off quickly enough, a sudden burst of energy driving her further down the path than Emmi even thinks she’s capable of. She lets her go until she loses sight of her, veering off to the towering smokestack and half-demolished walls that lay around its foundation.

The buildings look out of place on their own, but the tower is something else. There are a few holes and missing bricks but besides that it looks as if it could stand for centuries and weather the test of time.

There’s something to be said about places like this. They’re eerie, no doubt about it, but it shows that not everything is meant to fall. Some keep standing even when they’re not meant to.

The low-roofed building just beyond the smokestack is a great example. Despite the missing door all four walls refuse to so much as sag. The gravel moves more than the walls do around back when she places a hand on them, testing their give.

It’s always something she’s been curious about, this give and take. The world doesn’t so readily admit it.

There’s a shift in the dirt just behind her, same as the gravel she’s been displacing for some time now. All she can think is  _ so much for splitting up, _ and then a hand tangles in her hair and yanks her back.

Decidedly not Ria.

She hits the ground, hard. All of the breath gathered in her lungs is suddenly gone. She didn't even get a good look at their face - just something normal, nondescript. Nothing that would do her any good.

Emmi had learned a long time ago that screaming never got you anywhere good or fast. It only brought unnecessary attention, often synonymous with bad. No help ever came running. It was just a sign of weakness and that only made them all the more smug.

Implying it was who she thought it was. Could it even be anything else?

The man in question ended her struggle in the dirt as if she were nothing more than a worm, clamping his hand over her mouth as he flipped her face-down into the dirt. Grit pressed into her cheeks and into her clenched fist a moment before he entrapped that too.

Seconds. That was all it took. It wasn’t even enough time for her to properly panic.

She could feel him lean down through the knee he had pressed to the center of her back. "If you even think about screaming, your friend is coming with us."

_ Fuck.  _ She had no idea where Ria was. Hopefully somewhere far, far away. Nothing she could do would fix this.

What had Emmi said twelve odd hours ago? That she didn’t think they’d come after her all this way?

So much for not jinxing things.

A second set of footsteps approach, louder this time. This one isn’t going for a stealthy approach. What use is there when she’s already trapped on the ground?

“You sure we can’t just kill her?”

Despite herself, she flinches. Not like this. Preferably not ever, but definitely not this way. She didn’t even see them coming. They must have followed the two of them all the way up here, carefully biding their time until she was alone and out of sight.

“You know what they said. Facial recognition. They want to make sure it’s her.”

“Never had a problem killing random civilians before. We don’t even have orders yet.”

“Then we wait for them,” that was a third, unfamiliar voice. At least three. That’s not good. “For now, we keep it on lockdown.”

“You finished cutting the gas line?”

“Sure did.”

So they weren’t killing her yet. They were waiting for someone with the authority to say so, or they were going to take her somewhere where someone could confirm it.

But fuck, the gas line? They weren’t talking about their own method of transportation there. The third one had trailed behind and drained their car so that when they took Emmi no one would follow.

That meant they were scared someone would. Numbers were bad. Numbers had gotten some of their own killed back in San Francisco.

Their stunt in the city had unfortunately not gone unnoticed.

The weight on top of her presses in further. “You gonna be quiet?”

He doesn’t trust himself to hold onto her with one arm while the other keeps her mouth shut. As if someone with two working arms and the ability to creep up like that is scared of her. The world is so fucking backwards nowadays.

It doesn’t matter what she’s done in the past. Today, it’s well and truly fucked.

Very slowly, he releases his hand from her mouth. So Emmi bites him.

It’s about all she can do. Already she knows it won’t be effective. She bites down until blood fills her mouth, until he’s swearing up a storm and releases her. One of the others lashes out with a boot and connects with her ribs so hard that he sends her sprawling further into the dirt. Everything above her spins for one long, slow motion moment. The sun, the sky, the greenery of the trees.

The boot, on its next swing, comes back for her head.

Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.

―

This place doesn’t seem as daunting as the others.

Ria knows that makes little to no sense, but there’s no one around to argue her point.

It’s come to her attention that she hasn’t been alone outside of sleeping hours in  _ days.  _ Before they got down here almost all of her time was spent exclusively alone. There was nothing wrong with it. She just liked it better that way.

People down here went to more trouble to stick by her side. Some had up there, but they were few and far between, and none were quite like this.

She’s sticking with her now-correct assumption that anything human adjacent and their emotions are just very, very weird.

She can see why they would be drawn to a place like this. Hidden, mysterious, a tie to the almost forgotten past. They tended to chase after things they didn’t have in abundance already.

That’s what made them not so different. She had wanted more and they usually wanted… less. This was a reprieve from the real world.

Out here, the real world didn’t really exist.

Some of the buildings are so well-maintained that she can tell people still stay in them, hikers who come up here with no real desire to leave. There’s evidence of contained fires, blackened pits in the earth where new sprouts are just beginning to poke out of the ashes left behind.

Still, it’s peaceful. You could spend forever up here if you were prepared, if you knew where to go so that no one would ever find you.

Unfortunately her urge to be alone does not yet outweigh the situation at hand. Maybe one day Ria will find exactly what she’s looking for, whatever that may be. Just something little to call her own.

For now there’s something to actually be done and she’s one of the few capable of doing it.

Maybe even the only one.

Since their first escapade out into the desert Ria has had difficulty rediscovering the feeling that had clued her in. She had been _so_ certain what they were looking for wasn't there. Wherever it was, something had to give. Right here, right now, Ria didn't feel much of anything. Well, she was hot and her legs hurt, but that didn't actually count.

She just needed that feeling back. Even if it told her where it  _ wasn't  _ that was still something. They wouldn't have to spend hours looking around with no real direction.

Frankly she's relieved Emmi only said an hour. If they started climbing into the hills they could be here well after sundown. This place in the day was one thing - she had exactly zero desire to discover what it held at night. She could see it easily - the houses would be darker, the shadows in the window would play tricks on your eyes. Every rustle of the trees or slip of the gravel underfoot would trick your brain into thinking something was there just out of sight.

Again, one thing if Emmi stayed resolutely by her side through the entire night, and another if she was stuck out here alone. That was a fate she wasn't sure anyone deserved.

Finally she finds a building that requires actual investigation and not just a broken door or loose windows. She lets the door swing in all the way before she dares move, unsure of what she's even expecting. It's just one large, almost entirely empty room. A smaller one is in the far right corner, the remnants of a bathroom. All of the former debris in the little shack has been moved there - large chunks of glass and a few pieces of garbage left behind.

It's not here. She knows that even without a feeling. People are in here on the regular, congregating like they would back in the city. They come and they stay. No bad feelings involved.

Anything here was discovered long ago.

It would be so easy to stay up here and disappear for good. If she was anyone other than herself, that is. Muelara or  _ someone  _ is here, she's convinced… but what if they weren't?

She hasn't allowed herself to go there. The thought of simplicity alone makes her heart ache. If she was the only one she could disappear. No one would look for her or make her worry about her mere existence.

Icarus is not lucky in any sense of the world, but at least he left knowing that no one was coming after him.

Ria envies that.

The house would be a good idea, but her hour is almost up, and she still has to walk back. She allows herself a quick look in the ancient truck outside, sinking into the grass with time. Rust flakes off over her hands when she even brushes against it.

Still nothing. It was a good idea, same as the rest of them, but apparently just as doomed.

It's a good thing she never made any bold claims on the state of her own optimism.

Ria makes it back to the trail's end with four minutes to spare and sits down on the most sturdy felled tree trunk she can find, and even that one rocks under her weight. There's some relief from the sun due to the trees, a welcome distraction from the cynical ideas that they may never find the stupid thing.

More of a distraction than she anticipated, really. She doesn't realize it's been fifteen minutes since she sat down until she pulls Emmi's watch out of her pocket once again.

It's 6:11. She should have been back by now if they were both listening properly.

Her first thought, something hysterical spurred on by her desire for optimism, is that Emmi's found something. She's found  _ it  _ and she's figuring out what to do.

Ria stands up, shielding her eyes from the sun. She didn't see her on the way back and doesn't now, but there's a number of places she could have gone. 

There are mines out here. There are mines  _ everywhere.  _ Maybe Emmi finally grew the courage none of them ever found and finally went looking.

Ria knows where her second thought is heading when ten more minutes go by and Emmi doesn't show. She's unable to take more than a few steps away from her chosen spot, legs already a bit numb.

It's a stupid thought. Nothing's wrong. If something was she would have heard something or noticed…  _ something. _

She just has to wait.

She can do that. Wait. Patience is something she's practiced at.

Just wait and wait and wait, until the sun finally loses its balance and begins to descend to the steadiness of the horizon.

Just  _ wait. _

And Emmi does not come back.

―

It's like trying to keep track of a toddler.

Rich, honestly, because Soran is leagues older than him and should be, you know, infinitely wiser.

Or something like that.

Tarquin thinks there’s only so long he can trail him before Soran grows tired and gives up his mindless quest, but there’s no limit to it. He just walks. Walks and walks and walks.

He’s still tired, but also going stir-crazy.

Or maybe just real crazy.

The air in here is starting to get to him too, the same way Tarquin has felt it for days now. It shouldn’t come as a surprise when they head back down the hall as a pair and Soran keeps going, past both sets of doors, and heads right for the one at the end.

“You have a death wish,” he informs him as he wrenches open that prohibited door once again, paying no mind to any of his surroundings as he steps inside. He goes further this time, taking rapid steps towards the darkened abyss at the opposite end of the hall.

Tarquin follows because he doesn’t have much of a choice otherwise.

“Is there a point to any of this?” he asks after him. Soran slides to a halt and glass goes spinning away from his feet in every direction. He’s still further in than Tarquin would like to be.

On approach, though, it’s easy to see why. He’s losing it too, being stuck like this. At this point it’s past agitation and verging into something more dangerous.

“You’re not gonna figure out what’s in here,” Tarquin continues. “It’s not worth it, either. Whatever it is, it’s bigger than the both of us.”

“So what?” God, he even  _ sounds  _ overwrought.

“So it’ll kill one of us, or both.” Not that Soran cares about that.

Tarquin tries to be patient, but he waits for a minute, two, and then three. Soran neither speaks nor moves. He’d be statuesque if it weren’t for the hardly perceptible trembling frustration in his shoulders.

All the while the hallway continues to grow both longer and darker, as if even if they tried to see what was lurking inside they would never quite make it. They would just walk forever until the darkness swallowed them up.

Not a fate Tarquin is comfortable with, if he’s being honest. He’s sure fate won’t be kind to him when he meets his end, but anything is better than that.

He thinks, anyway.

“It’s not worth it,” he repeats. Nothing is worth this, especially their lives.

He’ll drag him out of here if he has to.

He goes for it at long last, an attempt at grabbing his arm that fails the second it begins. Soran takes a practiced step away as if anticipating it all along and breathes out a lengthy sigh, hands clenched.

“You know what, I’m gonna take you up on that offer now,” he says.

It happens so fast, thankfully, that Tarquin doesn’t even have time to brace himself.

It would have been much worse if he had.

Soran’s fist catches him square in the jaw and nearly sends him sprawling; his feet slip a few inches and catch in broken glass before he manages to right himself. Blood drips from his now split lip down his chin, wobbling onto the floor.

He takes a deep breath, keeps his eyes down until the initial pain subsides. “Are you fucking serious?” he asks, his jaw protesting the movement.

Soran shakes out his hand. “You offered.”

“I wasn’t  _ serious.” _

“Sounded pretty serious to me.”

He looks up, halfway to incredulous already. Yes, he had offered, on the simple basis that he didn’t think Soran would do it.

That was a few hours ago. He wasn’t nearly this far around the bend back then.

“You’re welcome for saving your damn life, by the way,” Tarquin forces out.

“Oh, and aren’t I ever so grateful for  _ that _ ,” Soran says sarcastically, taking a few more steps down the hall as if it never even happened. He didn’t think one punch would be enough to satiate him.

“You could say thank-you.”

“I could.”

But he won’t.

He’s still going. Tarquin’s not letting him get any further away. They’re not doing this. Unnecessary risk might be a part of the greater picture but that doesn’t mean it has to happen right now. Not like this.

This time he gets a proper hold of him, fingers locked around his forearm. Soran twists them both, wrenching Tarquin’s arm to the side.

His smile is just this side of terrifying.

“Are we really doing this?” Tarquin asks.

“You won’t,” Soran insists, almost sounding like he’s going to laugh. “You may have had your moment in the park but you’re still  _ good.  _ I know it when I see it.”

God, if only he knew. The adrenaline was only just starting to kick in. All he had to do was take note of the situation.

And he had already done that the second Soran grabbed him back.

His right arm is trapped. His lesser of the two, and Soran's dominant hand forcing it down. A subconscious decision on his part, but a good one. It's unlikely that he can't throw just as good of a punch with his left, too, but it's a chance Tarquin is willing to take and frankly one that he has to.

He shoves back with all of the weight driven behind his shoulder, which sends them further down the hall but manages to make Soran stumble, even though he does too. His iron grip on Tarquin’s wrist is starting to ache. One wrong jerk of his arm and his wrist is going to snap.

Talk about a disadvantage.

Tarquin shoves them both again, taking their weight onto himself, and aims a kick at Soran’s left leg, unintentionally catching him in the kneecap. He stumbles. His fingers flex against Tarquin’s forearm.

All the weakness he needed, really, as he tears his arm free and uses the swing of the momentum to aim a punch towards the center of his face.

He could do it fiercely enough to break something - his jaw, his cheekbone, even his nose, but he holds back some of the strength. Blood flows from Soran’s nose anyway, splattering over his shoes.

“Remember when you said I wouldn’t?” Tarquin asks, knuckles throbbing vaguely. He hasn’t had to hit anyone in a good long while.

Soran was right - he hadn’t wanted to do it.

Some things were just necessary.

Tarquin’s words only seem to piss him off more. He lunges, fist closed, for Tarquin’s throat. For wanting to fight so badly he’s certainly looking to incapacitate quickly. If that’s how they’re going to do it, fine by him. He turns - Soran’s fist glances off the top of his shoulder, a still-bruising hit to his clavicle and he strikes out once again with his leg, misses the kidneys, connects with his gut instead.

Soran breath leaves him for a second. It seems like more of an opening than it actually is. Tarquin catches him in the face again, splitting skin just below his temple, and once again goes for the throat.

Tarquin feels his knuckles brush before he manages to catch onto his arm, trying to force him back. Trying to do so to a nearly immovable object isn’t a task he’s particularly thrilled by. He takes the next blow Soran aims at his face; blood fills his mouth but he continues to hold on, and then twists to take them both to the ground, catching Soran’s foot against his foot and taking it out from under him.

If his trajectory is spot on, he’ll land on top of him, get a second or two to pin his arms.

Predictably, though, he doesn’t. Soran spins them both mid-air and they crash to the ground alongside one another, instead. Punches him, again, when the fall winds Tarquin for only a moment. He misses the second time when Tarquin ducks away but keeps coming, rolling forward until he has his knee pressed into Tarquin’s stomach.

His nose is gushing blood into his mouth. Soran’s next punch is less successful, knuckles slipping through it.

He pauses, then. Tarquin looks up at him. “This is really stupid, you know.”

He hesitates this time before he punches him again. Almost a victory. At least he’s slowing down.

Tarquin is so much better than this, in every sense of the word.

Soran is hunched over, clinging to his shoulders, has him pinned. The grip from his right is looser. Neither of them have managed truly damaging blows; not any that are going to end this, anyway.

Tarquin knows what he has to do and only hopes he can.

He twists them both until some of Soran’s weight is dislodged from over top of him, pulling his arm free from his failing grip, and goes directly for Soran’s throat. It’s about time he repays the favor. It’s the weak point, even weaker now from the abuse it’s taken. He loops his arm around his neck, shoves them both up until they’re nearly crouched on the floor, and then wrenches them both back to the ground.

He’s still not fully on top of him but he scrambles for it, pressing his knee into Soran’s chest, forearm over his throat. He’s not even really struggling anymore. Just wheezing.

Tarquin could have caved in his damn trachea with a fierce enough hit. Still could, right now.

He loosens his hold somewhat. “You done?”

Soran smacks him in the shoulder but his fist is clumsy, fingers pushing forward with no real intent.. “Fuck you.”

Tarquin eases up further. Soran takes that opportunity to drive a fist into his side, sending him sprawling out next to him on the floor. Tarquin holds his arms up again, waiting, but Sorans stays where he is, eyes on the faraway ceiling.

It felt like so much in the moment, now faded away to nothing at all. In reality it was probably nothing more than a few minutes.

“Did that make you feel better?” he asks. He certainly hopes so. Tarquin doesn’t know how much of a beating is willing to put up with right now.

That was nothing, too. The two of them could get so much worse. He’ll choose to be grateful for the fact that both of them were weapon free. He didn’t need to be shattering Soran’s bones on the end of a staff, didn’t need to be sliced to ribbons from the blade of a sword.

“Shut up,” Soran replies eventually.

It’s not nearly as vicious as he would have expected the words to be, so maybe it has. The fight is gone, and around them, the hall seems to have… quieted. It was never even loud before but it always seemed like too much was going on, an overstimulation of the senses. Even the darkness has retreated.

Whatever’s in here, it’s satiated for now.

Tarquin looks over.  Soran relaxes more into the floor with a long sigh, legs sprawled out awkwardly in front of him. As he tilts his head back even further, eyes on the ceiling, a bead of blood drips down from his brow.

Tarquin admittedly already feels bad.

He drags himself over until their shoulders touch, taking a deep breath, flopping back onto the floor.

Soran opens his eyes. “You suck.”

“You punched me first.”

“You didn’t have to fight back.”

“So I was supposed to let you pummel me into absolute nothingness?” he asks, though the energy required for bewilderment is nowhere near high enough.

“Not… nothingness.”

“But pummeling regardless.”

“A little bit, yeah,” Soran admits, closing his eyes again. As if Tarquin could expect anything else. And he  _ did  _ offer earlier, even if he wasn’t necessarily serious. He should have known that with Soran saying it was as good as making the deal.

Sort of sealed his own fate with that one, really.

“You can’t even fix me, asshole,” he says. His lip is stinging something fierce, and his entire body aches, but not enough for him to leave well alone. He noticed the ring was gone when they were back in the lobby, Soran two seconds away from ending a little old man’s life.

He’s not unused to feeling like this, but he also would prefer not to.

“Where is it?” he asks, unwilling to let it go. Soran fumbles with his own fingers, touching the space where it was. Gone just in time for him to have gotten used to it.

“I made Icarus take it.”

“Why?”

He shrugs, but the motion isn’t nearly as violent as the one previous. Once again he looks exhausted. This vicious cycle is starting to get to him more than he’s ever going to admit aloud.

Tarquin has about a dozen other questions poised on his tongue, but he keeps them to himself for now. Asking them isn’t going to get them anywhere. In the very least he’ll get another fist to the face.

“We ―”

“We should go find them, shouldn’t we?” Soran interrupts, swallowing thickly.

Tarquin looks over at him. “Great minds think alike.”

“Wouldn’t go that far,” he says with a wince, adjusting his shoulders. “I think you cracked a fucking rib.”

Then he holds up a hand between them, palm facing. Tarquin stares at it until Soran grabs his arm and wrenches it forward, clapping their hands together. As if he thought he was getting a high-five out of this any other way. When he grins at him, his teeth are bloody.

“I’m worried about them,” Tarquin says quietly. “ _ All  _ of them.”

“Right.”

“And you…”

“Are not admitting anything just because you think I feel too bad to do otherwise,” Soran says quite confidently.

And they’re back to normal, minus the still-bleeding gashes on his face and the aches in his torso. It’s as close as they’re going to get, so he’ll take it. Besides, he already knew what his decision was. He was just waiting a second to be followed.

“You should go find him,” Tarquin says. It seems like it came down to the two of them for a reason. They can both take off and do this.

There’s little choice in the matter.

Soran sighs. “I know.”

There was the agreement he was waiting for. Tarquin hauls himself to his feet, dropping a hand down to allow Soran to pull himself up. For an alarming moment they both wobble, two people who should not be going anywhere but don’t have much of a choice.

Everyone else has supposedly left on their own missions, purposeful for not.

All along they were just waiting for theirs too.


	8. The Hills Have Eyes

**Friday, July 7th.  
** **Twenty days after.**

* * *

Loathe as she is to admit it, Emmi is used to this level of darkness.

The look and feel stuck behind a blindfold is something you can't truly understand until you've experienced it. They've tied it so tight behind her head that it's increasing the throbbing in her skull ten-fold. The source of it has to be from when they kicked her into unconsciousness, not that she remembers.

Everything is flat and gray with not even a sliver of light seeping in from the bottom or top. Someone knows what they're doing. Rookies weren't the ones sent on this mission.

They learned the displeasure of that lesson the first time.

Emmi stretches out and leather squeaks under her; she abruptly stills as the sole of her foot connects with a door. She was lying prone on a long back-seat and there was something tied around her - cordage, she assumed, to keep her arms pinned to her side.

Her side flares up with pain and so does her head, but besides that she feels relatively okay. Her legs were still intact and that was usually what mattered the most.

So she could run. That was good. She shouldn't, though. There were three of them, at least, and no way they all happened to be unarmed. They'd shoot her rather than let her get away. As Emmi knew, that whittled her options down to one. To get away it was her or them, and she had to be the only one left standing when that happened.

Not the best odds, and she wasn’t so pig-headed as to not admit it, but doable all the same. Worst odds had looked her in the face and failed to take her down.

She just had to come up with a plan. There were voices around her, but none inside the car - they had stopped for rest, or for a quick break. She needed her hand, first of all, and then a weapon. Both things weren’t going to be so easily obtained.

Her arm didn’t so much as budge when she tried to wiggle it; her shoulder already aches from being stuck behind her back. It’s been a while, then. She can hardly feel her fingers.

Emmi is refusing to allow any panic to find its way into her veins just yet. She hurts, yes, but not nearly as bad as she could, and they haven’t killed her. They’re just biding time until they can.

And she can figure out something in that time.

Whoever these fuckers are, they’re taking their sweet time getting back in the car. Too long for Emmi’s patience, anyway. The fact that she even has any to begin with when it comes to them is ridiculous in and of itself. They just  _ kidnapped  _ her. Her patience right now extends to seeing all of them set on fire and frankly not much else.

She stretches out and slams her foot into the door. The voices outside quiet, so she does it again several times over until the door is tug opened.

A hand locks around her ankle. “Having fun?”

“What are you fuckers doing out there?” she asks, genuinely curious. She wishes she could see. Even a hint at her surroundings would be nice; if they’re still in the mountains, Ria could be close. Not that Ria needs to be anywhere near this, but maybe she could get help.

Or not, most likely. Emmi has to help herself.

“None of your business.”

“Aw, I can’t know?” she wonders. “Rats. And here I thought I could join in.”

“They did say she had a mouth on her,” one comments. It’s like she’s famous.

Close enough, honestly.

“Sure we can’t just kill her now?” There’s another voice. Still three, by the sounds of it. “It’s close enough ―”

“You want to risk your own neck by fucking it up?”

“I’m just  _ saying.” _

“Still here, you know,” she reminds them. She’d wave her arms about if she could. Emmi settles for wiggling her foot back and forth a bit because no one attempts to stop her. The other hand is still firmly pressing down on her ankle just heavy enough to remind her that like this, she’s got no chance.

“Hey, can I get out?” she requests. “Just for a second, I promise.”

There’s a long pause and then the grip around her ankle tightens. A moment later the man yanks on her so hard she goes tumbling free from the car, landing with a thud in the dirt. All the while the rope continues to burn at her forearm and the blunted stump of her elbow, digging deeper and deeper. She can already feel blood welling.

“Ow,” she emphasizes, blinking despite the futility of it. It’s not like she can  _ see _ , now that would just be ridiculous. She makes to sit up and stays still instead, letting her back rest against the gravel along the side of the road. She has an idea.

“You wanted out.”

“And you’re  _ definitely  _ single,” she quips, wiggling her fingers anxiously. There’s two things with them - the element of surprise, and sheer brutality. They’ve got both down pat from what she’s seen so far.

Emmi shifts, searching for the rock that’s digging pointedly into the small of her back, and finally her fingers close around it, slightly smaller than the palm of her hand. A lucky strike to the bridge of the nose or even the eyes and it might give her the few seconds she needs to get away.

She clutches it tight in her hand. Even if they notice, what are they going to do? The options are endless, but Emmi has already been on the receiving end of most of them at some point in her life.

Nothing they could do to her is scary outside of death itself, and for now they’re holding off.

Emmi lets the heat seep into her a bit, lets her hands burn with pins and needles. Her time out in the fresh air is limited. She thinks it might actually be dark out. The sun out here is so bright that it would seep even through the best blindfold, and yet she sees nothing.

She was right - it hasn’t been that long. Not even twelve hours. There’s no way she was out for over a full day. A few hours, at most. If she had to be it’s probably not long after midnight.

“Wait a second,” she attempts, struggling to sit upright. The less they have to grab her to get her back in the better; less opportunity for fuck-ups that way.

Two of them grab her under each arm when he’s halfway there and shove her head-first back into the car. She goes easily, as much as she doesn’t want to. Struggling isn’t going to get her anywhere. Not  _ yet. _

They continue shoving until she’s all the way in, and then one clambers in after her. She’s forced to fold her legs akin to that of a pretzel to accommodate him. They’re definitely all bigger than him. The one man’s foot alone was practically the size of her head, or at least she thinks it was before he had knocked her out.

She would have been disadvantaged years ago, with two arms. It occurs to her suddenly as the car rumbles to life that she’s never been in a position like this with only one. Emmi hasn’t allowed that to happen. Last time they took her arm. She vowed to never let that happen ever again.

Emmi had practically jumped head-first into her own coffin after the mess in the park that night. Repeated, almost casual attempts on her life were back in full force.

The Agency didn’t take kindly to their own dying, not to the very monsters they hunted. At the end of the day they were nothing more loyal, brainless robots housing human body parts.

They wanted her dead. They would come and keep coming until they got what they want, depleted numbers or not..

And if they didn’t? Well, Emmi allowed herself to imagine that for just a moment, because that’s what was waiting for them. She wouldn’t die. That was the one thing that truly scared her, so she would not cross into that territory.

They were wasting time with formalities, with properly identifying her. They were trying to do this right.

And that was going to be a fatal mistake.

―

The stars aren’t bright enough anymore.

When night fell over him, it felt like they could be. Distant glimmers of light to guide his way, to push him on further down a non-existent path that led nowhere at all.

Better yet, with the stars came the darkness, and a brief respite from the burning sun and the burning wind and the burning inside him.

Or so Icarus had thought.

It was not yet gone. Dark for hours, now, and he still felt just as faded as he had during the middle of the day. Now he was the one melting away into a form of nothingness that was more troublesome than just being gone entirely. His legs still worked enough to carry him, but everything inside was gone.

If it weren’t for the painful, visible thud of his heart in his chest, Icarus would think himself something akin to the walking dead.

A fitting ending for all of this considering he was supposed to be dead anyway.

He’s lost track of time since his phone died. No one was chasing after him anyway. While something in him had almost hoped a message would pop up, or the threat of a call, most of him knew that it was for the best the way it was. Icarus had left for the good of everyone else. Prioritizing himself was no longer important.

He’s come a long way in a short time. Both physically  _ and  _ mentally. It’s tricky to remember the  _ before _ , the life he lived before he plummeted out of the sky once again, but he thinks above all else the self-importance shined. He never would have put himself in this precarious position.

There was no way to be positive on this, but Icarus was leaning more and more towards the fact that he was going to die out here and never be found. He didn’t  _ want  _ to die. Now that he had lived in the first place and been brought back not longer after, he had no idea what happened. Would he still reincarnate, start another life? That seemed to be the most likely option, but he had no idea.

Like he said, though, chances are he was going to figure it out sooner rather than later at the rate he was going right now.

Heat stroke was a thing that existed, not that he knew what it entailed, exactly. Chances are he had it, or a version of it that was allowing him to still be upright. Soon the worst waves would hit though and he would be left defenseless, unable to raise the strength to even fight it. What was inside him, the embers that still burned despite his refusion to stoke it, would not save him.

They instead would go down with him.

Perhaps that was what fate had intended all along. To get rid of the worst part of him Icarus had to go too. Close his eyes, slip away. He would wake up with a new life where he would continue to hurt only himself.

The way it should have stayed, he thinks.

He has no clear path to dying, though. He’s exhausted, sure, and his legs have cramped so thoroughly every step forward is a struggle. Left behind are the roads and any signs of life - Icarus has now chosen to wander through dirt and sand and rock, a ramshackle, desolate town far in front of him. As abandoned as the rest of them, though standing taller than the rest.

_ When we said he didn’t deserve any more pain, this isn’t what we meant. _

Alarmed, he trips over a rock and nearly sprawls out over the ground. The voices are quiet, as if they too are fading off. It would make sense.

He hasn’t heard even a whisper of them since he left. Certainly they’re not on his side anymore. They’re only here still because he has the ring in his pocket.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, voice coming out a scratchy wheeze. A lot like how Soran’s sounded when they spoke in the parking lot.

He’s trying not to think about it too much.

Predictably, that’s all they say. They had said something vaguely similar just before he had taken off. It was getting harder to remember any of the words, though.

Everything seemed like such a blur. Icarus’ only goal was to make it to that town. There he could sit down, maybe, just rest for a moment and close his eyes…

He knew what would happen if he did for too long, but despite the fact that he didn’t want to, it didn’t scare him as much as it used to. If he was going to die out here then at least he could make it as painless as possible.

Besides, being inside, even if it was an abandoned, broken down building, sounded better than being stuck out here. His lack of knowledge on the subject was one thing, but Icarus was fairly certain hallucinations didn’t go hand in hand with heat stroke. Not the kind he was dealing with, anyway.

He could hear things brought in as if carried by the wind. Voices and further off-putting sounds, a disturbing moaning that sounded as if came from an injured animal. It made him walk faster. His feet hit the broken concrete of a road long forgotten as he stumbles for the first of the buildings.

The further he went the more he could hear water, too. It wasn’t real. His brain was fabricating the very thing he was dying for to use against him. Icarus refused to look for it. There was no possibility a stream was running anywhere around him; all-around him was nothing but the town and a vast, empty wasteland.

Soon he would die in it, he thought.

If he had turned around sooner there’s a chance he could have made it back to the hotel. In his desperation he could have called Emmi and told her to come back for him. Icarus could have done literally  _ anything  _ other than what he did to save his own life.

Apparently it’s not worth that much anymore.

There are lights, too. Those… might be real. Little glowing orbs above his head and drifting around him, like fireflies trapped in a jar. Every time he gets close to one it seems to wink out and vanish.

One, right in front of him, disappears just in time for him to crash into the fence that surrounds the building looming in front of him. It’s so thin he didn’t even see it. Despite that it refuses to give away and he hauls himself over it, the razor sharp wire cutting into his palms.

It barely even hurts. He feels the sting as his skin is punctured, but the warmth of blood feels no different than the rest of him as it slips down his palms.

The building can hardly even be called that. The front and back walls are still standing taller than the rest; the right side is about half as tall, and the left is almost non-existent. Most of its ruins lie in large piles of rubble off to the side. There are no signs of any windows, the doors long gone. Any second now the rest of the solid stone looks like to collapse

It’s clear what the fence means: stay away, danger, you’re taking unnecessary risks going near it.

As if he hasn’t taken enough already.

Icarus practically drags himself through one of the tall, empty archways leading in, and makes it only a few more steps before he finally allows himself to collapse in the next corner over. Having a wall at his back makes him feel slightly better, but that’s where the feeling ends.

The exhaustion is a part of him, hollowing out his bones and making a home for himself. Every breath hurts more than the next despite how shallow they are.

Icarus knows if he closes his eyes right now he may never wake up.

And yet he does anyway.

―

The hours are lost to Ria as the moon rises and then begins its descent.

She tries not to let it take control of her. It’s hard out here during the day even with someone, but the feeling is bearable.

This… this isn’t.

For a few hours she holds onto the delusion that Emmi is going to come back, and once those delusions fade then she begins to make her way out of the valley.

The first thing she notices in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill is the tire tracks alongside their own car, something she doesn’t remember seeing before. It takes her a minute for anything else - she smells the gas long before she sees it, and finds trails of it under the car, a puddle that refuses to sink all the way into the earth.

Hesitation is usually something she’s chock full of, but not in that moment. Ria takes one look at that and flees back into the hills.

She’s not sure how wise a decision that is, but it has to be better than waiting here in the parking lot. Her brain knows a few things - it’s open, exposed, and she already knows deep down inside that someone else was here and they’re the reason Emmi is gone.

The hills are better. At least that way she can hide.

This time she doesn’t go nearly as far, just until the first signs of some old civilization begin to show. A slightly more well-worn footpath, a yawning mineshaft nestled into the side of the mountain fit with old tracks leading into it. She finds the thickest patch of trees she can find, still too exposed for her liking, and ducks into them.

First things first, she needs to think about this analytically. She is okay. Not in the greatest of positions, but okay. Facts are what come in first: Emmi is gone, she has no way of getting out of here, and she is more alone than ever before in her life.

That’s a pretty high bar to beat.

Another fact: she can’t be calm about this. Trying to slow her breathing isn’t going to help.

So a plan, then. She’ll take a few deep breaths and head back down the hill to the car to grab the map. Emmi had the keys and her phone, but so long as she has the map she can pinpoint exactly where she is and find the closest town. Help will be there. She’ll find a way to get back to Amargosa come hell or high water, and then they’ll do  _ something. _

Emmi is in trouble. Not dead, because Ria can’t think that way and get anything accomplished. Just in danger. Danger can be fixed.

First step - get back up. She clutches onto a boulder to her left, grabs for the tree to her right, and slowly eases herself back up to standing. No movement or sound erupts except for the dry tree branch, which nearly cracks off in her hand.

She takes a step back out into the open, still holding on for dear life. It’s her only source of comfort at the moment.

And then, “Isperia?”

Hearing her name, her  _ real  _ name, is like being hit dead-on by a lightning strike, or at least what she imagines it to feel like. She goes numb all over very quickly, clutching at both of her inanimate life-lines with a renewed intensity as she swivels back and forth, trying to find the culprit.

They’re just a shadow, at first, tucked into the darkness that begins at the entrance to the mineshaft. The only thing that’s visible is the hair.

White as snow.

Until they step closer to her she can’t make them out and isn't sure she wants to. As the shape of their face is gradually revealed something in her softens. She knew it wasn’t Muelara, but the threat was ever present. Seeing a face that isn’t all the way bad is a relief - good, in fact.

One of the only ones who ever made an effort seems like a favor Ria doesn’t deserve.

“Kyrenic,” she says evenly. He actually  _ smiles.  _ He did smile a lot before, so it makes sense. Seeing him look the exact same is jarring, a reminder of what she should still look like.

He’s still smiling. “Nice hair. Might have to try that myself some time.”

Shame wishes over her, unwanted. She shouldn’t feel bad about this.

Ria takes a long look at her surroundings, but no one else is there. How grateful she is that it’s just him. How ungrateful for everything else.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks. He knows why, or at least most of it. They’re only out here because Muelara put them on orders.

“Why are you here?” she asks in return. If they’re going to beat around the bush and ask silly questions, she might as well save her breath by imitating him. It gives her more time to think of actual, proper words.

They both know the answer anyway.

There’s still enough space between them that she could probably run. Why, she doesn’t know. Kyrenic is one of the good ones, or so she believed. She used to think they were all good until she realized otherwise.

“You never came looking for us,” he says, and something in his voice is almost mournful. “You’re with… a bunch of humans?”

“Not humans.”

“No,” he agrees. “They’re worse.”

“Is that what Muelara is still trying to feed you all?” she asks. Right now, if he thinks they’re worse, she’s going to channel them. She needs something from all of them right now. The tenacity, the strength, the wit, the swiftness.

The longevity.

“Where’s Emmi?” she continues. He’s a good one, she reminds herself.

She still wants to believe that.

Kyrenic takes a few steps closer to her, blinking. “Who?”

“She was here with me. Another girl. I haven’t seen her for hours.”

“Did something happen to her?”

If there’s one thing she knew about him before, excusing how genuine he is, it’s that he was a horrific liar. Not like her.

Relief floods her veins, suddenly, before it’s replaced by something else as he continues to come closer. She can’t even place the emotion, but it’s not good. It’s unsettling something inside of her, trying to encourage her feet to back away. She doesn’t think he would hurt her, but most of what Ria knows has been turned upside down recently.

And now she’s alone, no one coming to her rescue. She has to be on her toes. Every move he makes has to be noticed.

“You shouldn’t be here with them,” he says. “You need to be with  _ us.  _ Where you belong.”

“They don’t all deserve to die just because Muelara wants us to live.”

“So you’d rather us all die instead?” he asks, seemingly bewildered. It seems like a simple equation, she knows. Us or them. Them or us.

Ria and who never held her tightly before, or Ria and the people that finally have.

She’s never been a quick decision maker until now.

“I’m not saying they all deserve to die,” Kyrenic says. “But think about this. You are not safe out here. They left you alone. They’re… they’re  _ corrupting  _ you.”

Apparently he wants to see corruption, then. He takes another two steps closer and she tightens her fingers until the tree branch snaps clean off into her hand. Ria finally takes the first of her own steps forward, and Kyrenic’s feet stutter to a halt.

She never thought something like that could be gratifying.

“ _ She’s  _ corrupting you,” Ria corrects. “Making you look for something that in her hands could get you killed, too. And you know what? She won’t care. Not if I die, or you, or any of us. So long as she lives.”

“Isperia.”

“Don’t.”

“ _ Isperia _ .”

“I said,” Ria enunciaties. “Don’t.”

Emmi’s gone, and in her place Ria is still pretending she’s here. This is what Emmi would be doing right now. Emmi would have already ran him through, or punched him so hard his head spun clean around.

Kyrenic, hands held up, continues advancing. So placating, like she’s a frightened animal and he is her tamer. It’s like Muelara all over again.

She could reach out and poke him with the branch, now, but she doesn’t. She can’t. If it gets to that point, it’s over. He may not survive that and Ria  _ definitely  _ won’t. She needs to get out of here and get help.

She needs this to not be  _ happening. _

“Compromise?” he asks, voice soft. That's what someone does when they're looking to get your guard down. Gentleness can't  _ possibly  _ be excused for anything else. “We’ll go back underground and find it together. We’ll destroy it. When we go back to the city we can tell Muelara we didn’t find it. And after that, who knows, but we figure it out. You just have to come back with me.”

Ria only registers two words - underground, and back. She files the former away in her brain for later as valuable information. It makes sense. More than she’d like to admit.

The second she vehemently refuses the second it comes out of Kyrenic’s mouth.

Ria will not go back. Not now.

Not ever.

He’s so close. She wishes he wasn’t. Ria clutches onto the branch tighter, brings it front of her.

No one has ever looked scared of her before.

“Isperia,” he murmurs. “What did they do?”

That’s the final straw. He reaches out a hand not for the branch, but for her. He’ll drag her back there. Therein lies the end of both of them. Not Kyrenic, but Isperia  _ and  _ Ria.

Gone like they were never there.

She swings. The branch connects. There’s a sharp, ugly crack as he hits the ground at her feet but his eyes are still fluttering, open. She expected that. She’s not strong enough for one hit.

What Ria didn’t anticipate is the blood.

There’s an immediate spray of it as the branch connects with his skull, flowing down over his scalp and into his eyes. He looks up at her, or at least tries. What little of her that he can still see is looming taller than ever before.

A few drops of blood have already begun to sink into the sleeve of her sweater.

His mouth forms around a word, possibly her name, as his hand stretches up.

She swings down again. Another crack. More blood. Ria knew what panic felt like before this moment and somehow it’s nothing compared to what she’s feeling now. Ice cold dread and frantic hysteria forming into one maelstrom and she’s caught directly in the middle of it.

He wasn’t supposed to bleed.

The third hit. There’s already so much red covering his face she can hardly make out the details of it. He whimpers on the fourth, and then goes quiet. She thinks she does too. A fifth, and then sixth. By the seven she’s sobbing. By the eighth he’s gone quiet for good.

On the ninth she stumbles, pitches forward, and goes crashing to the ground next to him, the pool of blood forming underneath his head edging towards her knees.

A tenth. She’s on auto-pilot. Her brain has shut-down. She wouldn’t still be swinging otherwise. Her arms have gone numb.

Eleven. Blood seeps through her pants and stains her skin. There’s a messy arc of it across the front of her sweater.

On the twelfth, her fingers give out and spasm. The branch clatters away.

Thirteen. Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen. There’s no thirteenth.

Just Ria.

―

Not being able to heal is odd.

He has twin black eyes. Soran can’t remember the last time he looked in the mirror and saw that. Never, maybe? Or at least never with the threat of it lasting for the indefinite future.

He pulls at the cut above his brow with the tip of his finger, watches some of the newly formed scabbing pull apart. Blood wells underneath it.

Tarquin is watching on in silence from the doorway, his reflection seemingly at ease with his decision.

He had been gone for a while there, but judging by the recently re-acquired staff, he’s ready to go.

“You leaving?” he asks.

Tarquin nods. “I know I said wait until morning, but…”

“Still no response?”

“Nothing.” Tarquin sighs. “Bad feeling is only getting worse the longer I sit here. Might as well do something about it.”

Might as well, yes. Not like there’s anything better to do except sit here and pick at his wounds, seeing most of it for the very first time. Tarquin had insisted they both catch a little bit of sleep first, and he  _ had _ , little as it was, but now it just felt like he was avoiding it.

“Are you going to leave too?” Tarquin asks.

“Sure am.” He sort of has to. He can’t very well sit here by himself, now can he?

Tarquin shifts back and forth on his feet. They both look in similar states of awfulness; not nearly as bad as it could have been, but certainly worse than whatever Emmi was anticipating when she left Tarquin to watch him.

He’s going to get an earful for this.

“You don’t suddenly feel bad, do you?” Tarquin asks.

“No.”

“Good.”

He blinks. Tarquin manages a smile. “If you felt bad, I’d be worried, you know,” he continues. “You’re already acting strangely enough. But no, you’re fine. That’s good.”

“Fuck you,” he says, but there’s no real venom behind it. Does he feel bad? Not really. There’s at least a  _ little bit  _ of regret associated with the action, though, because in the very least he should have found something other than Tarquin to punch.

Then again, he tried. Tarquin just happened to stop him.

That old man has it coming.

“I’ll let you know when I find them,” Tarquin says. When, not if. Such optimism is astounding for how worried he seems to be about their whereabouts. “Just keep your phone―”

“I know, I know,” he interrupts. “I’ll go find my boyfriend, you find your girlfriend, whoever succeeds first calls the other. Got it.”

Tarquin lets out a long sigh. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he asks innocently. “Find him?”

Tarquin turns around with a roll of his eyes. “I’m going now. Call me when you find him.”

Soran waves. Tarquin, without looking, reaches back to give him the finger as if anticipating the action. He leaves the bathroom after him, watches his retreating back.

“Hey,” Soran says. “I’m sorry.”

An audible snort just before Tarquin closes the door is paired with an equally amused look on his face. “No, you’re really not.”

Ah, well. He tried.

Once Tarquin leaves, it occurs to him quite quickly that he hasn’t been properly alone in some time. Emmi clearly didn’t trust him to be. Yes, he’s leaving, but even once he does he’s still going to be alone. Soran’s had an idea for some time now, letting it steep in his brain whilst Tarquin was around to overrule it, but now that he’s gone…

Well, Soran’s just gonna have to do it, isn’t he?

First things first, he packs up every single thing left here by the four of them into random bags, wherever it fits, and combs both rooms high and low to make sure nothing is left behind.

The decision is a simple one: Soran isn’t coming back here.

Everything else is a bit tricker. He can ensure no one else has to either so long as he collects all of their belongings, but that still leaves him with no car and only two empty arms to take it with him. Not going to happen, clearly.

The next bit had come to him sometime after Tarquin had pulled him up off the floor. He’s seen that old man either pull in or leave every single day since they got here in the same car, a rusted red pick-up that sits just around the back of the lobby for as many hours as the day and night are long.

And he may not have the ability to pop the lock open with just a thought anymore, but he knows exactly where the keys are.

He drops their collection of bags just behind the car, out of sight, and makes his way to the blissfully empty lobby, taking a long look around. Once again he leans over the counter but no one reacts to his sudden intrusion, letting his hand slide over the lip of the counter towards the glint of the key ring that he saw only for a moment yesterday.

The keys slip into his palm without even a jingle as he clutches them tighter, slipping out the back door once again. In and out without hardly a sound.

He’s slowly getting back into the groove of things.

Soran shoves all of the bags into the closed truck-bed and gets behind the wheel, tucking the keys away for safe-keeping. It’s old, but it’ll do the trick.

He doesn’t have the same luxury as Tarquin. He can take off no problem and find the girls as  _ well  _ as the car and get into it no problem. Soran could take off, too, but what happens when he finds Icarus? There’s no way to move him, to get him out of whatever awful situation he’s thrown himself head-first into.

He needs this truck. It’s not so much stealing as it is a simple favor.

So what if he never gives it back? Like he said. Old man had it coming.

Soran tightens his hands around the steering wheel before he starts the truck. “Just give me an idea,” he requests. “Anything you can manage.”

The spirits are far away, now. Maybe too far. After a long enough separation he couldn’t hear them at all, but a few days couldn’t take them away entirely. They had to be able to give him something, or else Soran was going to drive in endless circles and never find him at all.

They were trying to connect, to speak, but all he could hear in his head were murmurs. So they weren’t so pissed at him after all for trying to force severance.

They still wanted to help.

“Anything,” he says quietly. No voice, this time, but a faint image, blurry around all edges, as if projected directly into his brain. A building beyond repair, hardly standing.

Soran can work with that. There’s only so many places, and he can find this one. He’s already done enough research. Finding him now should be easy.

He just has to find him, preferably before the sun rises once again.

Who knows what havoc he could wreak once it did.

―

There’s one thing Tarquin truly knows - human brain, animal brain, whatever one is currently in control.

Death Valley should not exist. People should not live here. You are not meant to make it out.

It’s an odd sense of deja vu, as if he’s been here before and should know the intimate details of it. Specific mountain ranges, a tree here and there, an old broken down well that looks like nothing more than a pin-prick this high up in the air.

Transforming has always been such an odd thing. It’s the form of an animal with human emotions living inside, ones that don’t always make sense, twisting and morphing to fit the current situation.

Most of them have to go away when he’s flying. Comes with the territory. This high up in the air, taking enough control over a different form to wield it properly, those all come at the price of letting mostly everything else go.

It comes with practiced ease, now. It didn’t always. Even longer it took him to properly control the magic behind the shift so that he could come and go as easy as breathing, as if nothing had changed.

It was enough to fool just about anybody. That was why Tarquin had lasted so long without anyone finding out. Nobody expected a bird to hurt them. Nobody expected a bird to suddenly morph into a fully-fledged human with a weapon on their back, either.

He knew the second he landed, whenever that may be, that he would look the same as he did upon leaving the hotel, weapon at the ready, unchanged.

A useful trick to have in your arsenal when you had so many already.

Surprisingly, or not, there are really only so many places to look for them. They never discussed any populated or obvious places amongst themselves, or at least he wasn’t privy to any of those particular conversations. It’s the hidden gems, the places people only flock to if they’re looking for curiosities. Places, ultimately, that would be capable of hiding such an important thing for as long as it’s been here for.

With that, there are a few existing rules - avoid lights, avoid people, avoid streams of cars on the roads.

The most important - look for and notice the things that others wouldn’t.

Tarquin is more than positive that no one else could see what he sees this high up.

And even this up, he knows a body when he sees one.

Descending is easy enough. It’s not as if he hasn’t dozens of thousands of times. He lands a ways away, first in the easy shape of an animal and then down to the ground on two legs, shaking slightly from the transformation, but only just. He’s long grown used to it.

It’s  _ definitely  _ a body. Not that he was doubting that. Down the slope slightly to the left, nearly in the shade of a tree. All the blood makes it difficult to pinpoint any individual details but he tries anyway, at least until he makes out the white hair.

Tarquin freezes. It’s not possible that it’s  _ her _ , may not even be any of them, but is a coincidence too unlikely to be true right now?

He thinks it just might be.

His hand reaches over his shoulder to wrap around the staff almost subconsciously, fingers finding a comforting anchor in it as always. He creeps a bit closer, footfalls silent through the dirt. What he was hoping for was a sign of glaringly obvious, electric blue, but his eyes are closed. What’s left of them, anyway. His face and front half of his skull have been thoroughly massacred, a branch rolled not far away clearly the culprit. Individual shards of wood have been left behind in his ruined cheeks, the caved-in bridge of his nose.

Someone certainly did a number here. Hell, more of a number. There’s not much left above the shoulders to even mark it as a person.

Or alien. It’s definitely looking like one.

A twig snaps somewhere behind him and he flinches, whirling towards the noise. He’s not keeping in tune with his surroundings. Stupid mistake.

He’ll get himself killed, too. The blood hasn’t even dried yet. It’s recent, which means whoever swung that branch is not far. Possibly still here, even.

The brush rustles for a moment. A shadow passes along the thin, unsteady trunk of the tree.

And then, out of the shadows emerges… Ria?

Tarquin’s brain does a very quick and inconvenient shut-down.

She manages something - it sounds like a choked, garbled version of his name. To put it lightly, she looks a mess. Tears and dirt are streaked across her face, though she’s not crying now. Dark splatters rest in odd spots over her hands and torso, though the worst bit is her legs, dark all over her knees and spreading in ripples up to her thighs.

Dark, but not dark enough. It almost looks like blood.

Tarquin’s blood goes cold so quickly he nearly ices over as he looks back to the body and then back to Ria once again. The blood. The vicious tremble in her hands.

The way the tears come streaming back down at her face the second he really  _ looks  _ at her.

“Tarquin,” she manages, though at least this time it sounds half-way right. “I didn’t― I didn’t know what to do, he just showed up, and I panicked and Emmi’s gone, and, and―”

“It’s okay,” he tries, making his way towards her, and just in time, too. Her legs tremble, same as her hands, and then her knees give out; Tarquin stops her from hitting the dirt by a precious few inches, dragging her back up into his arms. She tries to grasp at them, frantically, struggling to find purchase.

“It’s okay,” he repeats. “Talk to me, what happened? What do you mean Emmi’s gone?”

She’s essentially sobbing into his shirt, at this point, trying to find air to breathe.”She― she’s gone, and someone cut the gas line and I was going to head back down but he was there, and I― I killed him, oh my God, why did I―”

It trails off into babbling, or sobbing again, or a mixture of both. It’s difficult to differentiate between the two. He squeezes her tighter, unable to tell if it’s appreciated or even noticed as another sob wracks her tiny frame.

He turns back over his shoulder, still holding onto her. It’s a  _ mess _ , and all the  _ blood _ … jesus, he didn’t even think Ria was capable of something like that.

One of her own, too. She was right.

Tarquin turns back and wills himself to relax save for his arms curled around her, squeezing as tight as she can. She may just fall apart if he doesn’t. He can’t even risk letting go to check his phone, see if he has service - he doesn’t, presumably. They’re in the middle of nowhere, and Emmi’s inexplicably gone, and Ria just  _ killed  _ someone.

He doesn’t remember how he felt after the first; it was too long gone. Awful, presumably, and that’s just the beginning of it. The first step into an even worse descent.

Jesus.  _ Fuck.  _ Tarquin can’t even wrap his brain around it.

That’s the thing. You’re not supposed to be able to understand this. Messes are just that. Complicated, difficult to understand, almost impossible to get out of.

And look at the one they’ve created now.


	9. The First Day

**Friday, July 7th.  
** **Twenty days after.**

* * *

Waking up to being carried quite unceremoniously is not fun.

Emmi has a lot of practice with it, after all. Her opinion on that front is not something to be questioned or trifled with.

One of them has her by the ankles, the other under her shoulders. Only God knows what the third one is doing - fucking nothing, if she had to bet, other than staring at the spectacle of it all.

To think she had actually managed to get some sleep cramped in the back-seat with one of them. She hadn’t been so certain she would even wake up. Killed in her sleep would be easy - kind, even, but she wanted at least a chance. The gamble had paid off - she hadn’t thought they’d get orders so soon, so she’d risk catching some shut eye while she still could.

Now she feels slightly alert even despite the blindfold, well rested enough to maybe do  _ something.  _

She twists her wrist and feels the rock tucked snuggling between her bindings, breathing out a quiet sigh of relief.

There’s a brief moment of light at the bottom of the blindfold before they both drop her suddenly and let her crash to the ground. She quickly bites back any words of protest.

“You’re with her first,” one of them says. “We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”  _ Good.  _ Wherever she is now - presumably an isolated room of some sort, judging by the coolness of the cement floor, they’re only leaving one person with her. Emmi can work with one person. She’s dealt with worse.

She waits until both other sets of footsteps have retreated, and then a few more minutes just to make sure. It gives the remaining man some time to get comfortable.

Emmi sits up, slowly, testing her surroundings. They didn’t even tie her to anything. How stupid they can be?

She smiles slowly, listens to the even breathing of the man slow off for a moment. “Hi,” she says. “Will you take the blindfold off if I ask nicely?”

The approach of footsteps makes her sit up straighter. “Are you  _ going  _ to ask nicely?”

“Please?” she requests. A hand suddenly tangles in her hair and wrenches her head back. She gets the feeling she’s looking at the ceiling, or his face. One of the two.

“If you start biting again, we’re going to have a problem.”

A moment later, the blindfold falls away. Emmi keeps her eyes screwed shut before blinking quickly, trying to get used to the light. “Was it  _ you _ I bit?” she asks. “Sorry about that.”

There’s a huff. She opens her eyes, properly this time.

He’s not the one she bit. Younger than she expected from the sound of his voice, a few years older than her physically if she had to guess. Looks nice enough. Wouldn’t stand out on the streets, couldn’t possibly offend anyone. Exactly the type they recruit. You’d never see him, or any of them, coming.

And much to her chagrin, she didn’t.

“You don’t happen to have any painkillers, do you?” she asks. “My head’s killing me, you know, and ―”

“Don’t push it,” he orders. Emmi forces herself to be quiet, wiggling her wrist once again. It doesn’t so much as budge, and her arm is raw from even the bit of straining she’s already done.

So she can’t get her arm free. That’s a problem.

Emmi leans back against the wall, taking stock of the room. It’s barren and empty, not a single window, only one door leading in or out. Probably a little back room in a warehouse, if she had to guess. Again, she’s seen plenty of those before. At this point they’re growing a little stereotypical. She deserves a higher budget imprisonment than  _ this. _

Oddly enough, he reminds her of that young kid she killed way back when, just before one of his friends cut her fucking arm off. Not quite as innocent in the face, but still young enough to molded.

Look where that’s gotten him.

Emmi cocks her head. “What’s your name?”

“What’s yours?”

Ah, a test. She willingly confirms, they kill her.

She allows herself another smile. “Veronica Mars.”

“Good one,” he says, deadpan. “I’m Logan.”

She can’t quite tell if that’s legitimate or a joke based on what she’s already said, and it’s not worth her time. Maybe-Logan doesn’t even look satisfied with himself, so maybe he’s serious. Wouldn’t that be funny?

Emmi makes a sudden, split-second decision as he walks past her yet again, pacing the room from wall to wall. She eases up onto one knee and wedges the rock free, letting it drop to the floor with a clatter.

“Oops,” she says, looking down on it with feigned shock. Logan pauses, quickly turning back to drag it to the front of her with the toe of his boot, bending down to scoop it up.  He’s so damn close it’s almost criminal; the stupidity in and of itself is truly astounding.

“A rock?” he asks incredulously. “Now what did you think you were going to do with that?”

Emmi takes stock of him, balancing on the balls of his feet just in front of her. He’ll be unsteady. That’s not good enough.

“A rock,” she echoes, smiling once again. Easy as breathing. “You might want to take a really close look at it if that’s what you believe.”

It’s a rock. Nothing more. Dusty from the ground outside, stained with a bit of blood from being wedged up against the raw, torn skin at her wrist. Logan stays in his crouch, holding the rock up to eye-level, clearly perplexed.

Big fucking mistake, if you ask her.

Just before he opens his mouth to speak Emmi lashes out with a foot and catches him directly in the back of the hand, driving both his fingers and the rock closer to his eyes. There’s a hoarse shout. Blood splatters over both of her shoes as he goes rearing away, the rock slipping free from his fingers. She can’t begin to tell what’s happened to his eye - he’s clutching at it, still shouting obscenities under his breath.

“Oops,” she says again. She doesn’t even bother trying to get to her feet to outrun him to the door - already the other two are coming back, and one slams the door open, face taut with anger.

“He tripped,” Emmi claims. “Clumsy, isn’t he?”

Logan lets out another swear, blood dripping down his face, and kicks her in the gut. “You  _ bitch _ ,” he chokes, still with his hand against his face even as she doubles over, gasping.

“That’s me,” she wheezes, sees the second kick coming and can’t quite avoid it as she sprawls out over the floor.

One of the others finally approaches, the other clearly the blockade at the door if she even tries to get up. A moment later and the biggest one is looming over her. Older, hardened, an ugly scar marring the right side of his face. This one’s been in enough scuffles to actually prove himself, and he’s just so happened to survive all of them.

Definitely worse than Logan. Maybe a bit funny, because they’ll have matching scars, now, but not funny enough.

He leans down over her too, breath exhaling warm over her face. “What’s  _ your  _ name?” she asks, daring to be cheeky for presumably one of the last times.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it?” Emmi asks. He pulls a pocketknife from his belt, flicks it open. Emmi tracks the movement carefully as the blade descends steadily towards her face until the point is pressed against the softest part of her cheek, just below the eye.

“You can’t kill me,” she says. The taunt is yet another risky gamble, but she’s full of those right about now.

“We can’t,” he agrees. “But you wanna know what I  _ can  _ do?”

She’s never been properly tortured. People have tried and never succeeded. Emmi only talks when she wants to, anyway. People trying to extract information out of her ought to try someone else. She’s not about to snitch - not on anyone, and definitely not on herself.

More of his weight bears down on the knife until the tip breaks her skin. “I think I can guess,” she says, though there’s an odd tremor in her voice that wasn’t present before. The shake seems to delight him. A smile grows across his face.

“How do you think you’d look without eyes?” he questions. “You wanna match Logan over there?”

“Pretty sure his eyes are still there,” she informs him. She didn’t kick him  _ that  _ hard. Whatever words she had planned on after are lost as he leans in further, digs the knife in deeper. Emmi clamps down on her tongue to keep from screaming at the immediate flow of blood that streams down her cheek, pattering gently over the floor.

“Where’s that blindfold?” he asks, lifting the knife up to scrape over her forehead instead.

“What d’you need it for now?”

“Someone might hear her screaming.”

Alright, fuck these guys. If they don’t all end up dead in the immediate future there’s going to be hell to pay. Logan strides back over, a bloody rag pressed to his eye and her discarded blindfold in his other hand. Just before he shoves the ragged end of it between her forcefully closed lips she sees how the youthful innocence of his face has changed.

Now, well, he just looks particularly enraged.

Should’ve seen that coming.

“Give me that,” Logan requests. The pocketknife is dropped into his waiting palm, and he looks far too delighted about holding it.

Someone’s going to hold onto her, and someone’s going to cut into her, and all the while she's stuck here, waiting only for a third party to tell them to kill her.

Her time is running out, certainly. The knife presses ever closer on it’s journey.

The time she has left until she starts screaming is even fewer.

―

There are… noises.

_ Noises _ ?

Different than before. It sounds like something’s actually here, or around him, but the fog in his brain is too thick to pin-point it. All of his senses have been dulled - vision black, ears refusing to make sense of any sound around him, fingers so numb he can hardly feel what’s beneath him. Something rough, like stone.

He's either in purgatory or he blacked out. No other reasoning why everything is so dark. He opens his eyes, or at least he  _ thinks  _ he does. The black shifts to a slightly less dramatic slate gray, vision swimming at the edges.

Still, though, those noises.

Icarus doesn't know much right now, or anything at all, but he knows they can't be good. This isn't just another hallucination.

Problematically, though, Icarus doesn't think he can move. His body is shutting down, refusing to take orders.

Without warning, he  _ is  _ moving. Ground harsh under his back, the sun-warm stone searing everywhere his bare skin touches. He has no idea which way is up or down, what he's looking at or if it's even real. There's an odd amount of pressure around his arms before he's released from it, and then there's something… digging through his pockets?

What the  _ fuck? _

There's a flare of panic that comes to life in his brain. Unsure of why he tries to shift away until the pressure comes back down and keeps him still.

His pockets… what's in there that his brain is so worried about? Something is, he's sure of it.

Regardless, he can't do anything about it. Whatever's going on around him, above him, it's going to happen. Icarus is powerless to stop it.

All at once, it's like an unseen force dumps a bucket of ice water over his head. A burst of cool air washes over him and he nearly chokes on it, gasping as it hits him head on before something flattens over his mouth and silences him. When he blinks, some of his vision clears. The sky overhead is dotted with stars, growing lighter. Some of the fog seeps away. It's like his body is coming back to life without ever having fully faded away in the first place.

Abruptly, all around him, the world goes deathly quiet.

"Stay here," a voice instructs. "Don't move."

That voice, those words… they're all things he's heard before.

The pressure hanging over him finally eases off and then disappears altogether. Footsteps. Icarus rolls after the sound, watches a figure retreat around the wall he's safely tucked behind, sword in hand.

Not just any figure.

"Soran," he tries, though apparently his voice isn't back up to par just yet. His pockets are empty. The  _ ring  _ \- that's what Soran was after, and now it's gone, and Icarus is suddenly alive again. Whatever he did has brought his body back from the brink of total shut-down.

There's another noise, something guttural and low, like hissing. Something's here.

And so is Soran, almost ridiculously.

If something is here, he can hazard a guess as to what he's doing now.

Icarus pulls himself to his feet and waits until the shaking in his legs subsides, inching towards the end of the wall. How is Soran even  _ here _ ? He tracked Icarus down? Someone's determined.

It wasn't supposed to go like this. Icarus has to get away from him.

The wall next him shakes and disturbs the earth, sending up clouds of dust. A wide crack runs from the bottom and continues up, sending loose stones at the top flying. As he watches it begins to crumble and lean forward, directly towards…

Directly towards where Soran just went.

_ Shit. _

"Soran!" he shouts, and this time it actually echoes. His sudden terror likely has something to do with it.

Icarus can't do anything as the entire wall gives way and collapses like a felled tree, crashing and breaking along the desert floor into a thousand individual pieces. The cloud it kicks up makes it impossible to see, stinging at his eyes.

Once again the earth goes quiet as the last of the wall settles and stills into the dirt.

"Soran!" he yells again. That's apparently all he can fucking say. The heat stroke does a fair job at turning him into a broken record.

He steps forward into the rubble, moving too fast. Most of it seems to have disintegrated around the edges until further in, where there are still intact slabs and chunks of rock. He could be crushed underneath one of them; Icarus wouldn't be able to get him out. He's probably  _ dead  _ \- like it matters if Icarus could get him out or not.

He trips, catches himself, re-opens the barely scabbed gashes lining his palms.

And then he runs right into him.

Grabbing onto him is not an intentional move. Soran's hand on his arm stops him from spilling into the dirt. He ends up clutching at the back of his shoulders, fingers frantic and searching even though he's standing upright, clearly unharmed.

It takes him too long to realize the ground around them is clear in a perfect circle at least five feet across. Despite the dust moving around them Soran is clean, not a speck of dust having landed on him through the impact.

It didn't even touch him.

Soran leans forward, examining something just in front of them. Buried beneath the rubble is some sort of grotesque, monstrous creature, the head of a snake and its razor sharp fangs just poking out from one of the biggest slabs.

As he watches Soran reaches forward and pokes it with the sword's end but the skin holds taut, refusing to be pierced.

"You… you brought the wall down," Icarus realizes, voice weak. The ring gleams on his finger once again.

The wall never even had a chance in hell at touching him.

"Sure did," he answers. His voice is normal again. Icarus could cry.

"What is it?" he asks.

"Something that probably would've swallowed you whole."

Icarus breathes out a sigh of relief, allowing himself to drop his forehead onto Soran's shoulder. A heartbeat later he realizes his mistake. He's not supposed to be doing this. He can't touch him.

Icarus flinches back at the mere thought of his hands even starting to glow once again and falls flat on his ass, stumbling out of Soran's little circle of safety.

Slowly, Soran turns to look at him, eyebrows raised. Sheathes the sword. "You know, this whole  _ I keep finding you half-dead  _ shtick is getting old really fast."

"You can't be here." What the  _ hell  _ happened to his face, while he’s at it? They’re not recent injuries; not from this fight, anyway.

"Unfortunate," Soran says. "Considering, you know, I am."

“We can’t― I’m not doing this,” he says in a rush, hurrying to his feet. “You know―”

“What do I know?” Soran asks. “I’m alive. What more do you want?”

“Barely,” he snaps, stepping over yet another piece of rumble, making his way to his bag. Every step he takes and Soran follows, having much less difficulty with it. “You were seconds away from it.”

“You too, just now,” Soran informs him. “If I hadn’t found you―”

“I’d be dead!” he shouts hysterically. “Probably for the best, too, because no one can fix what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“What do you call the fact that I almost killed you, then?”

He can hear Soran getting so much closer and yet can’t make himself move any faster. He grabs the bag, nearly trips through the front archway. There’s a red pickup truck in the leftover ruins of the road. He doesn’t even ask.

“An accident?” Soran tries. If Icarus wasn’t adamantly refusing to touch him, he’d turn around and smack him instead.

Soran finally grabs a hold of his arm and he jolts, trying to tug it away. He finds more resistance than he expected.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Soran repeats, turning him around. “You have an  _ ability.  _ Same as millions of other people in this fucked up world, and thousands more that don’t know how to control it.”

“I could kill you right now.”

Soran has the gall to laugh. “Really? Then go ahead. Be my guest.”

Icarus wrenches away, bringing his arms close to his chest. “It’s not funny.”

“You  _ can’t.  _ You have no idea how to control it. I know you. You’d prove a point right now if you could, but you have no idea how to call on it.”

Icarus wants to hate him. He really, seriously does. He wants to throw his hands out and have them glow but he doesn’t want to even chance hurting him and most of all he wants…

What does he want anymore?

“I just… I need to go,” he says at last.

“Then go,” Soran offers. “But if you leave  _ again _ , that’s on you. I’ve clearly got enough weighing on my conscience without you being involved in it too.”

“You said―”

“I know what I said,” Soran interrupts. “We’ve also learned I’m not the smartest bunch of this lot, haven’t we?”

Soran said he never should have let him stay, let him go willingly, and yet here he is, saving Icarus’ sorry life yet again. He doesn’t deserve that much and never will. A few days ago he almost killed him. One more accident and he does it for real.  _ His  _ conscience isn’t strong enough to handle that.

He really could go again. This time Soran isn’t going to chase after him. That’s what he’s done here.

He thinks Icarus is worth coming after.

“You didn’t even fight back,” he remembers. How is it possible that it already seems so far away? He knows he didn’t even without a proper memory, and Soran doesn’t open his mouth to argue.

What he does is take a few steps forward. Icarus takes another two back.

“I didn’t fight back,” Soran says carefully. “Because  _ anything  _ I could think of to do in those few seconds would have been fatal. You would have died. I wouldn’t have been able to bring you back. And then what?”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not.”

“So you die and I get to live instead?” he snaps. “That seems fair.”

“I knew you weren’t going to kill me.”

“You didn’t know that!” he yells. “You didn’t know anything because you were fucking  _ dying _ ,” he spits, and on his next steps trips over a hardly-there crack in the road and crashes to his knees. Of fucking course he does.

Icarus considers trying to get up. He also considers laying there and letting Soran run him over in his newly acquired car as if he ever would.

“I don’t want this,” he chokes, tears prickling at his eyes. “I never wanted it, I still don’t, if someone could take it away―”

“Don’t think that’s possible,” Soran cuts in. “So all we can do is learn how to control it.”

We. Jesus Christ,  _ we.  _ How did that suddenly become a thing again? He tried to leave, to sever that tie, unsuccessfully. Icarus did not deserve a  _ we  _ so long as he was like this.

He looks up, struggling to make anything out with the tears pooling in his eyes. There Soran stands above him, arm held down, hand offered. Can he really do this? Can  _ they _ ? It’s not something Icarus should allow himself.

“You can stay here, if you want,” Soran says. “I can’t stop you. Besides, with what we’re getting into we may all die anyway. What I do know, though, is if you stay here neither of us are going to last very long.”

He holds up his hand and his chest aches, the dam bursts. Soran takes it to pull him to his feet and by then he’s properly crying. Icarus wraps his arms around him, as close as he can get, willing some of the painful pressure to release from his chest. Nothing happens. His hands stay as they are clenched into the back of his shirt, trembling viciously. He’s just safely warm, a comfort to how often he’s been burning as of late.

Icarus buries his face in his shoulder, inhaling. He’s alive, breathing, same as Icarus. They got through the other side.

Slowly, carefully, he brings a hand up to the side of his neck. He has to  _ try.  _ He wills his fingers to stop spasming, to hold themselves there and relax. It’s hard when he can feel the evidence of what he did.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice thick.

Soran sighs. “I know,” he responds. “Me too. But don’t get used to me saying that.”

He chokes a little bit, but it sounds like enough of a laugh that it can’t be that concerning. Not that Soran should be the one apologizing here, but he gets it.

He sort of has to.

Icarus has no idea how long he stands there besides the fact that it’s surely an inappropriate length of time. He doesn’t want to move, to leave the one moment in the past while that he’s felt truly safe.

Not from himself. Never from himself, but the rest of it was okay.

Icarus forces himself back eventually, gently turning Soran’s chin to the side. He’s bruised like no tomorrow, complete with a few freshly healing cuts. “Seriously,” he says, swallowing. “What happened?”

Soran shakes his head. “Don’t ask.”

He wants to. Maybe he shouldn’t. Instead he looks down and folds both of their hands over the ring back on Soran’s finger, thumb pressing into the stone.

“Fix your face,” he urges.

“Why?”

“Because I like it better the normal way.”

“What?” Soran asks, a grin playing on his face. “You’re not into this?”

Ah, there it is. That stupid normalcy he had been craving and so convinced he was never getting back. Icarus allows himself an eye roll before he leans in to kiss him, if only for a moment.

“I hate you,” he informs him, pulling back.

“Right back to it, I see,” Soran says. He tugs on his hand, pulling them down the road towards the suspiciously new, yet old truck at the side of it.

Icarus can’t help himself. “Where’d you get that?”

Soran gives him another pull, looking as if he’s about to dutifully ignore him.

Instead he smirks. “ _ Don’t ask.” _

―

Less than an hour later, the sun begins to rise properly.

Soran is pretty sure that helped Icarus’ case in the very least. His not so much.

In a twist of fate, he’s exhausted again. Not sleeping well, the general  _ issues  _ of the past few days, his rapidly healing face and dragging Icarus back from the brink from yet another one of his dumb decisions - it was all catching up to him.

All of that  _ and  _ the now-collapsed wall in the middle of the desert, hiding one of its many grotesque creatures.

His only real intent had been to find a town with actual cell service. He couldn’t get a hold of Tarquin, and if Tarquin had found the others he had no way to know that either.

He chances a glance over at Icarus. He’s hardly moved, legs pulled up to his chest so he can rest his chin on them. Twenty minutes ago he reached his hand out, palm up, and Soran hadn’t felt any fear when he had taken it.

Fear never got you anywhere.

He has to be realistic, though. He was not making it much further, and there was no way Icarus should be driving right now either in his condition. Preferably they should both be comatose and far, far away from here.

Oh, well. He could get one of those accomplished at least.

Soran pulls the truck off to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, watching Icarus’ startled, confused blinks as the car rumbles to a stop.

“I need to sleep,” he explains without waiting for the question, gently detaching their joined hands to climb into the backseat. “At least for a bit.”

“I can drive.”

Soran grabs the keys and shoves them into his pocket. “You  _ could _ ,” he agrees, flopping into the backseat. “You could also get back here. Unless you want to stay where you are and stare at me the entire time like you do at home.”

“I do not stare at you.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

He closes his eyes, waiting. A moment later the seat squeaks as Icarus begins to climb after him. It was just another test. The first had been him actually willing to touch him the first time, the second his self-initiated hand-hold. Third time's the charm, right?

“There is not nearly enough room back here,” Icarus mutters, although he settles down by his side as well as he can. He won’t be surprised if they both fall off to the floor in the next five minutes.

“Says you and your gangly ass legs.”

It’s not anywhere near comfortable, and they’re both cramped back here, but he’s too tired to actually care. He thinks Icarus might be too. Soran tries to find an appropriate amount of space for his head wedged up against the door, but there isn’t one. Somehow he got the short end of the stick here. They don’t even have old times yet, hasn’t been nearly long enough, but Icarus constantly using him as a pillow is definitely going to become one at some point.

He looks relaxed enough even though he realistically isn’t, eyes still wide open, staring blankly out the window. “I’m exhausted,” he murmurs. “Have been since we got here.”

Soran had noticed. It was difficult not to. The drag to his feet as if the gravity was trying to take him down, the lack of any quick quips constantly thrown back at him. He had thought it was just the constant piling up of everything that was going on around them, but now he’s not so sure.

“Maybe that’s your consequence,” he says.

“Hm?”

“There’s always something when you take life from death. You could say it was the powers themselves, maybe, but those are arguably a good thing. Instead you’re not using them, and they’re draining you. Physically, mentally…”

“Emotionally,” Icarus finishes, bitterness heavy in his voice. “After I… that was the most awake I’ve felt in a long time.”

“Because you used it.” As much as having an answer helps, it’s not one that Soran is thrilled by. “So you have no choice, now. You have to use it. Unless you want to feel like this forever.”

Icarus stretches his arm out, hand hovering over them both. His fingers flex and twitch as if trying to make something happen.

If only it was that easy.

“It’s not just about the movement,” he explains. “More the intent than anything else. You have to actually  _ want  _ it to happen. Just holding your hand out isn’t going to do anything.”

Icarus drops his hand with a sigh, finally allowing himself to properly hold on, arm around his side. “I don’t want it to happen.”

He’s not doing himself any favors, then. Soran doesn’t even really know what it’s like. He never tried to hide from his own, to quell them. There was no point.

Something like that always came out eventually whether you wanted it to or not.

“Like I said, we’ll figure it out,” he reminds him. It’s a part of him, now. There’s no making it go away. Either he learns to deal with it or it’s going to take care of him as efficiently as an execution, swift but ten times more painful than one.

A fate they can avoid if they deal with it sooner rather than later.

Icarus clutches him a little tighter and finally settles, a few quite exhales escaping to release the rest of the tension from his body. “Go to sleep,” Icarus murmurs, as if he doesn’t sound seconds away from it himself.

That was the end-goal. Soran just needs to close his eyes for a bit, and once they wake up he can properly tell him about the inevitably of what they’re dealing with, and then they can actually move towards it.

For now, though, he’s tired - they both are, and the rest of the world can wait just a bit, selfish as it is.

Don’t they deserve that much?

―

His signal keeps flickering in and out.

Every time he even dials the number it darts back down to nothing, a clear taunt. The bars can grow all they want, but they never stay up long enough for him to do anything.

Tarquin’s starting to get sick of it if he’s being honest.

With the sun bearing down on him, he’s not sure how much longer they can actually stay here. He could fly elsewhere and get a signal, enough of one anyway to tell Soran to come and get them somehow. That would involve leaving Ria, though, and he’s not sure that’s in either of their best interests right about now.

It took him long enough just to get her down the hill and anywhere close to the now useless car. She had been sitting in the same spot for hours now, legs crossed, eyes fixed on whatever bit of dirt or rock or whatever the hell she had been staring at for hours now. 

She no longer even twitches when Tarquin paces by, and he seems to be doing it every thirty seconds or so, his frustration more adamant with every step.

Leaving her here is asking for it. He looks back up the hill. Maybe there  _ is  _ something he can do without leaving her entirely.

Tarquin pauses in front of her. “Hey,” he tries gently, waiting for almost another thirty full seconds until she looks up at him, squinting through the sun. “I’m gonna head back up the hill, try and get a signal. I won’t go too far. Okay?”

It takes a while, but he waits, and eventually Ria nods, eyes returning to the ground once again.

That’s as good of a response as he’s going to get. He’ll make it quick.

Besides, now that the atrocities of the night have passed, along with Ria’s sobbing and garbled, nonsensical explanations, there’s something else he ought to do.

He can’t very well leave the body out in the open like that.

Tarquin hears the flies buzzing before he even sees it, great clouds of them that scatter the second he intrudes on their evident buffet. He hits  _ call  _ before he dares look down. The smell hasn’t gotten too bad, yet, but that’ll come soon. This time the phone doesn’t even begin to ring before it beeps, yet another message about trying again.

There’s only so many times he can try.

He wedges the phone between his shoulder and ear and does anyway. This time it actually rings, and he holds his breath as he reaches for the body’s right arm and starts to drag it further up the hill. It weighs hardly nothing at all, and they’re practically the same size. The wonders of extraterrestrial creatures hard at work.

The phone rings and rings, and then goes to voicemail. He swears.

Now’s not the time to not be answering the phone.

He dials again and again, and keeps pulling  _ again  _ and _ again  _ until the ground begins to even out despite the body still bumping over rocks at every tug. He's caught sight of a tight space between the hillside and a tumble of rocks - one dump over to the other side and no one should find it so far off the trail. In the very least by the time anyone does it'll be nothing but hollow bones, no real evidence to find. It's not like aliens are suddenly registered with the government. He can't help but wonder what they'll think if someone  _ does  _ find it, no name or address or family ever able to be identified, forensics be damned.

It would be enough to keep you awake at night. Then again, the body is doing that well enough for him. That's why he's getting rid of it.

The ringing is so continous that he doesn't even register it stop. He's halfway up the rock fall with the body when it does, a crackling, irritated voice on the end.

" _ What? _ " Soran says, voice heavy. "Don't tell me you found them already?"

"Hold on a second," he huffs, dragging the body up to the very top before he plants a foot against the already sinking abdomen and shoves it off, into the black abyss.

"I found Ria," he clarifies. "Emmi's gone."

"What do you mean?"

"They stopped at another spot to check it out. Emmi told Ria in the car something about the Agency - said they're after her."

"Well, we knew that."

"But now it's legitimate. You're hearing me, right? She told Ria they would meet back up in an hour - that was eighteen hours ago. Someone cut the gas line on the car so whoever was with her couldn't follow?"

He can clearly  _ sense  _ the confusion, imagine the bewilderment on Soran's face. "So they didn't just kill her? That's not very  _ Collection Agency  _ of them."

"Whatever it is, I really don't think they did. For whatever reason. So we need to find her."

It's of the utmost importance. Their search can wait. Something inside him is confident that Emmi is still alive, which means there's nothing else to do.

"What do you want me to do, then?" Soran asks. Finally, some agreement.

"I… don't think it's a good idea to leave Ria alone. If you could get a car―"

"I have a car. Where are you?"

"You― how do you have a car?"

"Where are you?" Soran repeats, clearly unwilling to delve into that conversation. Tarquin isn't the right person to interrogate him on that matter. That would be Emmi, and she's no longer here with them.

They  _ really  _ have to find her.

Tarquin turns back down the hillside. Better not to waste any more time.

"Near Panamint City," he finally offers. "Ghost town up in the mountains, we're at the bottom. You know, next to the car we can't use."

"Got it. Be there in a few hours."

Tarquin waits for something like an abrupt hang up but it's awfully quiet. Not exactly what he expected.

"We can find Icarus after," he says, voice unsure. Should he even bother going there? "Not that I  _ want  _ to leave him out somewhere for any longer, but…"

"I've got him too," Soran says. "We won't be long."

"What do you mean you have him?" Tarquin asks. As if he just got criticized for having found Ria so quickly and now  _ this.  _ "Soran―"

And  _ then _ , predictably, he hangs up.

Typical.

―

Ria has never felt so removed from a situation in her entire, rather short life.

She keeps hearing the word dissociation over and over again in her head. It's the only thing that feels… right, anymore.

Everything else has faded away.

Tarquin had returned and she didn't have to ask - his palms were a bit dirty and he pocketed his phone with quick assurances that someone was coming. Not Emmi, obviously. But someone. That had to be good enough.

It takes him a long while to find a seat beside her. His pacing has been endless, feet constantly kicking up dirt, muttering nonsense under his breath. Ria felt like she should ask, but couldn't. Her brain cannot  _ handle  _ trying to deal with anything else, no matter how trivial.

When he does sit his breathing is labored and he chugs half a water bottle before he forces the rest on her. She hadn't even remembered the bottles were in the car; her brain had fled so far south before he showed up that she couldn't think of anything else.

Not anything but the body.

"Did you get rid of it?" she asks finally, voice hoarse. It, not him. She can't think of the corpse she left up there as anything more than an  _ it. _

Their shoulders touch when he closes the last inch between them. Ria forces herself to keep still.

"I don't think anyone will find it," Tarquin says, each word carefully chosen. He's watching her, waiting for a reaction.

She chooses not to give him one. "That's… that's good."

She doesn't even think Muelara, or anyone for that matter, will look for him. They'll think he ran, same as her. They certainly won't think anyone killed him, least of all her.

Unless it's a happy accident, Kyrenic is stuck up here for good.

Where she put him.

Ria doesn't think she's capable of crying any more than she already has. Thankfully he doesn't ask her if she's okay because she just might manage to.

“What happened to your face?” she forces out, staring at her knees. If he’s in any pain, he’s been loath to show it.

He leans in further to nudge at her, gently. “Don’t worry about me.”

So she doesn’t, as selfish as it is. Ria knows she’s awful.

They sit there for a while, she knows, because the sun only blazers hotter as time goes on, and Tarquin keeps forcing her to drink at regular intervals. If it wasn’t for him showing up she doesn’t know what would have happened to her. Maybe it would have been her corpse out here too, withered along with Kyrenic’s in the scorching sun until some unfortunate hiker stumbled upon them both.

That seems like a kinder fate than she one she’s getting now.

Once again she scratches at the blood flaking between her fingers. Every time she thinks she’s gotten it all off she notices another patch a few minutes later. It’s like it’s never-ending. No matter how much she gets rid of more seems to take her place. Something stereotypical about how it’s not just standing her palms is floating around in her head but refusing to form into actual words.

Tarquin takes her by the wrists and slowly upends the rest of the bottle over her hands, rubbing at the last few flecks of blood he can see until it looks as if they’re all gone. Ria continues to stare at her hands as she hears tires crunching through the gravel and dirt ahead of them, even when Tarquin sets the empty bottle down by her side and gets up.

She stares at her newly clean hands until a door slams shut, glancing up. The car is unfamiliar, but the people are not. It’s definitely them.

“Did you take that from the hotel?” Tarquin asks, voice far too loud. He’s been so quiet with her.

“No, I got it from the goddamn Death Valley Maserati dealership,” Soran answers with a snort. “Where do you think I got it from?”

Ria has no idea what that is, but enough of an image forms in her head that she can put together that the truck in the parking lot now is  _ definitely  _ not whatever Soran just implied it was.

“You can’t just―”

“Don’t lecture me. You’re not Emmi.”

Another reminder. Ria bites down on her lip. They’re going to do something, right? That’s why they’re all here now. They have to do something.

She has to get up and at least  _ try. _

Everyone’s footsteps stop so suddenly that she looks at them again. All three have stopped. Tarquin because the others did, and Icarus because it looks as if he bumped into Soran’s back. Tarquin’s alarm left him long ago; now it’s just the other two.

“What the  _ fuck  _ happened to her?” Soran asks incredulously. Icarus’ eyes are very wide. She can only imagine what she looks like to a new set of eyes. Looking down is bad enough.

A miniature shoving match ensues as Tarquin keeps telling him to shut up, paired with the fact that he tries, somewhat successfully, to bundle both of them back behind the end of the truck presumably to explain. He’s just trying to help her out.

Ria lays her head back down on her knees, letting water drip from her hands. The blood may be gone from them, but her heart still feels just as heavy.

A part of her thinks it can’t be right. She’s having a nightmare or hallucinating something she could never dare to imagine before.

If her sweater and pants weren’t equally stained she might just believe it.

“Hey,” someone prompts. She doesn’t bother looking. From the shoes alone, it’s Icarus. She stays that way until he nudges her leg again and again until she squints up at him.

She’s not sure how he’s pulling it off, but he has a slightly less hellish version of what she surely looks like on his own face. His only advantage is that he’s not covered in blood. That doesn’t mean it can’t be as bad as hers, but once again she’s not going to ask. She owes it to her own brain to keep quiet right now.

It’s what’s in his arms that sends her lurching to her unsteady feet, quickly snatching it all from him. To his credit, he doesn’t so much as blink.

It’s clothes.  _ Her  _ clothes. She didn’t even think to grab any over the past few hours. Her legs weren’t working until now.

He hesitates. She can tell. “I wouldn’t want to look like that either,” he supplies. She figured as much. Different reasons, though. If Ria looks down she gets nauseous and all the water in her stomach threatens to come back up. With Icarus she’s just certain he doesn’t like looking anything other than ninety-seven perfect or higher.

He doesn’t right now, though. None of them do.

To put it lightly, they all look like  _ shit. _

“Thanks,” she murmurs, and Icarus nods, backing away to the truck. Giving her much-needed space.

Step One: change her clothes. It’ll make her feel better, she knows. It fixes nothing, but it’s a start.

Step Two: find Emmi. She has no idea how, but surely someone has to.

Step Three: she doesn’t know just yet. For once in her life, Ria doesn’t know if she ever will.

It seems like a fitting lesson in her first day as a murderer.


	10. The Rest of Your Life

**Friday, July 7th.  
** **Twenty days after.**

* * *

“So is anyone going to come up with a plan?” Tarquin asks.

Ria is looking at nothing, big surprise there. Icarus is looking at Soran, who is looking at him. Together they’re having one hell of a stare-down, silently trying to decide who’s more capable of making this decision.

What decision you ask? Tarquin hasn’t the faintest clue.

“So,” he starts. 

“She could be out of state by now,” Soran interrupts. He was just waiting for Tarquin to start speaking by the looks of it.

“Do you really think she is, though?”

“I have no  _ idea  _ if she is or not,” Soran says. “That many hours though, it’s plausible.”

There’s no way to tell. That’s the most infuriating part. If they had even an inkling they wouldn’t be so lost right now.

“I can go look,” Tarquin offers. “Go airborne for a few hours. It’ll be quicker than searching in the car.”

“You don’t even know what you’re looking for.”

“Well, I can start somewhere. You can stay here with them and I’ll go look for anything suspicious, and as soon as I see anything I can head back here.”

“I can do it too, you know.”

“You can stay here,” Tarquin repeats. He knows Soran is exhausted, even if he won’t say it aloud. At least one of them needs to rest at some point. “Does that sound good, or does anyone have a better idea?”

Nobody has been a big talker until now, and apparently they’re all reverting to that status as well. He’s not necessarily surprised. Soran and Icarus both talk well enough, but it’s Emmi that was always in your face about it. Her presence is a noticeable, gaping hole, something that Tarquin misses a lot more than he thought he would.

Better to leave now in an attempt to try. At least he can say he did.

“If no one protests, I’ll be going,” Tarquin says. He shoulders the staff again, pockets his phone. “I’d appreciate it if everyone stayed here.”

Ria nods without really looking at him. Icarus leans back against the truck, head in hands. Only Soran actively glowers at him, but he expected that much. It’s Soran who follows him all the way to the edge of the parking lot too, out of sight. As much as he tries to avoid the hand on his arm, Soran's grip is unrelenting and forces him to a stop so sudden he nearly loses his footing.

“You know as well as I do that you need to stay here,” Tarquin says before he's even turned around. “You can’t ―”

“I never said I was going anywhere,” Soran says. “I just wanted to say - I don’t think she’s far.”

“Why do you think that?”

“From… from experience, if someone wants you dead that badly, they do it outright. They don’t risk taking you somewhere else first. The only reason they do that is if they have something else in mind. Sure, their plan might be to kill her  _ eventually _ , but that wasn’t it out of the gate.”

“So…”

“So, you adapt to wherever your target is,” Soran continues. “They knew she was here, they had a plan that involved them being  _ here.  _ They wouldn’t waste time driving her out of state.”

“Which means she’s close-by,” Tarquin surmises. “In the park, at least.”

That narrows it down by a very large margin. Tarquin will fly in circles through this whole place until he finds her.

As twisted as this all is, he knows Emmi would do the same for him.

“Somewhere inconspicuous, where they could lie low,” Soran says.”Not obvious whatsoever.”

Not to a human, maybe. But to a bird…

He can do this.

“Got it,” Tarquin says. “Listen, if I’m not back by the time the sun goes down―”

“You will be,” Soran interrupts. “You’ll find her.”

Where did such awe-inspiring confidence come from, especially from Soran of all people? He would never admit it, but clearly Icarus being back is good for him.

Or maybe, for once in his life, Soran is just trying to be an idealist.

Not likely, he realizes, but stranger things have happened. They’re happening right now all around him.

“I’ll find her,” he agrees. It seems wrong to argue with him on that front. He’ll find her, and they’ll fix this, because if not… well, he’s just not going to imagine it. Tarquin saw that gun to Ria’s head back in the car; whatever they could do to Emmi is far, far worse. “One thing, though. Just… keep an eye on them here. I know you’re tired, but―”

“Yeah, I got it,” Soran says. “Don’t worry about them. Worry about Emmi.”

He can handle this. Soran, who was just about dead a few days ago, doesn’t have much of a choice.

“One thing for you,” Soran continues. “When you find her, unless she’s in immediate danger, get your ass back here. The last thing I need is both of you ending up dead in a ditch somewhere. You come back and we’ll sort of them out together.”

“Me and you, you mean.”

“Who else? Unless you think Ria’s in the mood for a repeat of last night.”

God, no. She’s probably never going to be in the mood for that ever again, and frankly he can’t even imagine letting Icarus loose on them right now. Just because Tarquin wants to hunt them down doesn't mean he wants to see them incinerated to ashes.

“Sounds like a plan,” Tarquin says. “I’ll be back by sundown.”

“Sure will.”

He almost makes it away. Just before he does Soran grabs his arm again, not so tight this time. Tarquin forces his irritated reaction away.

Soran says something, and it takes him a long moment to realize that not a word of it was English. Something he recognizes but not nearly enough to understand. He wishes he could, honestly. Those words probably meant a lot.

Soran lets go of him. “I’m not nearly fluent enough in Korean to understand that,” Tarquin says, eyebrows raised.

“Shut up,” Soran says, turning back to the cars where they’re both still waiting obediently. “You’ll figure it out.”

He waits. It doesn’t take very long. Soran only just makes it back to the cars when the split down the center of his lip begins to tingle, almost as if…

Almost as if it’s healing.

Tarquin smiles. Already it doesn’t hurt as much. “Thanks!” he calls after him, but gets no response. Not that he expected to. As if Soran’s apology was ever going to be anything other than in another language or total silence from the get-go.

It’s enough of one for Tarquin.

He backs up into the trees and takes off, already feeling a little bit lighter.

In the day this place is like another universe. Actually alive, enough people to make it more confusing than it ought to be. It’s not quite a maze - that honor is reserved for places like San Francisco and others that are equally troublesome. It’s no wonder that Tarquin keeps finding himself trapped in them.

He looks everywhere, high up above where no one would suspect a thing. Towns and buildings that lie on their own in the middle of the desert, ramshackle and untouched. Storefronts and nearly abandoned parking lots as people hike the day away. More and more ghost towns and other things lost to decay and almost everything else.

All the while he watches the horizon-line and the sun as it begins to sink, and yet he still keeps looking.

And then, miraculously, he finds something.

It’s nothing at all, really. A low-roofed, nondescript building at the very edge of a town, close enough to civilization that it looks as if it belongs but far enough that no one likely goes poking around it.

He lands close by, on a rickety fence-post that looks around the side of the building. As he watches a younger man comes peeling out of the rear exit door and makes his way to the lone car parked out front.

It takes Tarquin a moment to realize what he’s seeing as he turns this way and that, looking down the road. The left side of his face is average, normal, but the right side is half-covered by a ragged, makeshift bandage stained through with blood. It’s not so dark that it can’t be more than a day old.

Fresh blood means something.

He goes for the roof, this time, and  _ listens.  _ The young man at the car lights up a cigarette and exhales the smoke into the darkening sky.

There are voices. Male. Two of them, at least. So muffled that Tarquin can’t quite make out what they’re saying no matter how hard he strains to.

But then, something else. An answering voice, quieter, hardly audible at all.

Tarquin expects it to be unfamiliar, unwilling to hope.

But it’s not.  _ Emmi. _

Bingo.

―

Soran is in the midst of a very odd doze when Tarquin gets back.

He hadn’t even really meant to fall into such a thing. Ria was still outside sitting in the dirt, and Icarus was perched on the hood watching her do it, and he had thought sitting in the car was a better option.

It was, really. It was a hell of a lot cooler. He left the door cracked and let the wind rush in over him, and it was enough to tip him right off the edge.

He could still  _ hear  _ things. The wind, for one, and the quiet murmur of the spirits in the back of his head. No real words, just comforting murmurs as if reminding him of their presence. That, or they were trying to annoy him. They couldn’t be the least bit pleased about the fact that he tried to get rid of them.

Tarquin lands so suddenly next to the car on two legs that Ria squeaks and Icarus nearly careens off the hood. The sun has a precious few inches left above the horizon.

He knew he would come back in time.

Soran can tell just by the look in his eyes that he found an answer, even if that answer is vague and hesitant.

It’s an answer regardless.

He had an inkling this whole time that something was astray with this situation. Tarquin returning in only a few hours proves that. For some reason the people hunting Emmi were stupid enough to keep her close. What a mistake that will turn out to be for them.

Everyone piles into the car while he blinks himself awake, Tarquin already tracing his finger across a line on the map he’s pulled up on his phone.

“It’s an hour, if that,” Tarquin says quickly, pointing him in the right direction as he pulls out of the lot. God, they really  _ are  _ stupid. “Stovepipe Wells - not even a town. It’s a community. There was a building on the edge of it and she’s definitely there. I couldn’t get a good count, but I’d wager there’s three of them.”

“Three is barely an obstacle,” he scoffs. “They really don’t think that highly of us, do they?”

Unless they just think it’s Ria with her and no one else, then three  _ would  _ be an obstacle. They’re about to find out just how wrong they were.

“You know you can’t over-do it, right?” Icarus asks him, voice drifting in from the back-seat. It’s strange not to have him up here, but he didn’t try and apparently didn’t think to ask. Ria took her usual place but her eyes are in the very least slightly alert, flicking between them when Soran glances back as if she’s unsure of the words.

He can over-do whatever he wants. It’s one thing if it’s nonsensical, but there’s a purpose behind this one. If Emmi is still alive, then that’s an opportunity handed to them on a silver platter and he’s not about to waste it.

“Might have to,” he supplies instead. There’s no use in arguing his way through this. As it stands that’s gotten them nowhere fast recently, unless you count Icarus running off to get himself killed in the desert as  _ fast. _

He certainly tried to let it be.

“No overdoing it necessary,” Tarquin says. “If there’s only three of them, we can handle that.”

He wasn’t prepared to already get more blood on his hands, but so be it. Shit like that stopped bugging him a long, long time ago.

The sets of eyes looking at him through the rearview mirror are telling a different story than that of Tarquin's words. Icarus looks unsettled, his bottom lip raw from gnawing on it. Or maybe that was just from the sun scorching him. He hadn't exactly focused on the cosmetic issues when he had fixed him - the heat stroke had been the more pressing issue.

Ria's eyes were a different story. A hundred different emotions warred in them despite how desperately she tried to keep them blank. It was hard to relate to something he couldn't ever remember feeling. Maybe that was why Ria looked away as soon as their eyes met.

It was one thing to accept the death yourself, another to look someone else in the eyes and go on with them.

They would be experiencing more shortly. Better to get used to it now.

Besides, with what they were possibly headed into, he believed this was nothing. His words to Icarus hadn't been for show; they may all be dead by the end of this. Soran wouldn't even be surprised.

Tarquin swivels in his seat suddenly, craning his neck to peer out the back window. "I think… I think that was the car."

Soran glances behind them for a quick second. A lone, dark SUV has whizzed by, rapidly becoming nothing more than a speck on the dark road.

"You  _ think _ ?" Soran asks.

"It might not be."

"What if it is?" Icarus asks. "Did you see three of them?"

"I think so." He sounds almost certain. Almost isn't necessarily good enough.

"What if they left her to go somewhere else?" Ria questions quietly. "I don't… do you think they would?"

Hell fucking no they wouldn't. This is Emmi they're talking about. Anyone who manages to capture her should think twice about leaving her alone, inches from freedom. If she was that close, she would find a way to get out.  _ If  _ they left her alone, he'd wager money that Emmi was already out and running.

They can't be that stupid. Mistakes are one thing, revealing yourselves another, but driving outside of the community and leaving your prize…

It wouldn't happen.

Everyone is still talking around him, borderline squabbling. Soran makes the decision for them.

The truck groans when he slams it to almost a dead-stop in the road and begins to turn around. Everyone's voices stop with it, leaving it the most grating noise for miles.

"What are you doing?" Tarquin asks. It seems pretty obvious.

"They've got her."

"I only saw the three of them."

"Then she's in the trunk," Soran decides. She has to be. "If they went after her in the first place they know  _ exactly  _ the type of person she is. You know her too. If you wanted Emmi to stay somewhere would you leave her alone?"

He knows that from personal experience. Most people aren't sensible enough to stay.

Soran is included in that.

He does a quick 180 on the road. The SUV is still in the distance. He presses down harder on the gas, the engine groaning in protest.

This piece of junk is really proving itself today.

"So what's the plan?" Icarus wonders.

"I'll crash it if I have to," Soran responds. If that's what it takes.

Ever closer, the distance between them grows smaller. If all goes well, they'll never see it coming.

"If she's in the trunk…" Ria starts.

"A crash could kill her," Tarquin says quickly. "You can't. We need to figure something else out."

"Then figure it out," he suggests. Quickly, if he had a preferable option. With every inch they gain on the SUV they lose a precious second. Them following along won't go unnoticed forever. A plan has to be put in action quickly or the opportunity will never come.

A hand suddenly locks over-top of his shoulder. The hesitance in Icarus's grip as he leans forward into Soran's space is palpable, but his fingers squeeze tight anyway.

"If we crash it, could you keep her safe?" he asks.

"Can we risk losing the car?" Ria asks.

"I've got an idea," Tarquin says. " _ If  _ you can keep her safe, all you need to do is get along-side the car. I just need eye contact."

"He can get the driver to veer off," Icarus says. "If you can keep her safe. Do you think you can?"

"Theoretically." Most things are possible. Not all, but most. Keeping someone safe for a few moments while Tarquin hijacks the driver should be a piece of cake, especially if it's the only thing he has to focus on.

They're almost there. They can do this within the minute.

"Can you keep her safe?" he asks aloud. There's already enough going on in his head.

Everyone is watching him carefully but everything feels like background noise.

_ As safe as anything. _

That's good enough for him.

"Alright, we're doing this," he announces. He reaches a searching hand into the backseat until someone places the hilt of the sword into it. Better to be safe than sorry. He leaves it in his lap as they inch right up to the bumper of the SUV and then he swerves out into the opposite lane, pulling along-side them. Only the man in the back-seat turns to watch them, but his eyes are only curious.

He’s going to learn soon enough just what a mistake that is.

The man behind the wheel is almost admirably resolute, eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead. All they need is a second.

Soran lays down on the horn and lets the sound blare for as long as he can. Finally the driver turns. He looks decidedly less curious than his friend. He allows his mind to empty until only one goal remains, the only one he needs to focus on.

Tarquin goes still as a statue. A second later, the driver’s eyes glaze over white.

Game over.

―

It sounds stereotypical.

It  _ is  _ stereotypical. People say all the time that there are no words to describe certain things, and those people are liars.

There are always words. Thousands of them to choose from. If you gave yourself the time you could think of them.

But at that moment, there really isn’t anything in Emmi’s vocabulary to sum it up.

A second ago she had been far away, tucked into the safest corner of her brain that still existed. They had tried to get rid of it, pry it out. She hadn’t let them. Every chip of her they took got them closer, but she refused to let them that far.

The blare of a horn had pulled her out of it. Everything came back in that single second - the pain, the disorientation, the threat of choking on the gag they hadn’t taken out of her mouth.

It was the answering shout that finally brought reality back to her. The horn stopped. The yelling picked up in volume.

And then Emmi  _ felt  _ the exact second the car tipped off the edge of the road.

There was no use in bracing herself. She was going to tumble head over heels, trapped in this confined space, and likely break every bone in her body. She already felt broken enough, but there was always more.

For some reason though, nothing happened. She felt gravity slipping away, and then…

The car kept moving, but Emmi did not.

It felt like she was suspended in a bubble, lying at the very bottom of it. An invisible force was pinning her to the floor of the trunk except she couldn’t feel anything, and as she tried to focus through the darkness, realized she couldn’t hear anything either. It was like she was underwater and everything was very far away.

There was stillness a moment later, even though Emmi had been still the entire time.

All at once, everything came back.

Emmi crumpled to one side of the trunk as the car finished tilting. There was a creak, a long-drawn out hissing. Someone was still shouting. It turned into a scream a moment later, followed by a single gunshot. She flinched despite herself, trying to curl up even tighter, but every limb protested the movement. With reality coming back so did the pain, and Emmi felt like she was on fire.

She drove her foot up against the trunk but like previous times it refused to budge. It almost felt like it was caved in, slightly… shit, no, it couldn’t be, she’d never get  _ out. _

There was thumping, and more screaming, and as the screams died off there continued to be voices. Her ears were ringly so badly she couldn’t make any of them out no matter how hard she tried.

Finally there was a thump right above her, as if someone brought their fist down on the trunk.

She flinched with every thump. She couldn’t see. Emmi wasn’t sure she wanted to.

There was another creak and then wind was rushing in over her, hot as can be. There was no light, but Emmi knew.

The trunk was open.

It wasn’t until a hand landed on her arm that she felt proper panic, trying to wrench herself away. There was nowhere to  _ go _ , not anything she could do, and Emmi already felt the knife cutting into her again, the phantom pain just as bad as the real kind.

“Emmi, stop! It’s us, you’re okay, it’s okay.”

_ Shit.  _ Fuck shit  _ fuck. _

What was  _ happening _ ?

“Don’t move, I’m getting you out.” She knew the voice. She was unwilling to believe it until she could see. Hands hooked under her shoulders and began to pull her from the trunk; her feet bumped up against the edge of it and then scraped against the ground. Real, solid ground.

Holy shit.

The second she was seated on the ground there were fingers sliding underneath the gag - it slipped out and fell to her neck. Every breath she took in was more a gasp, struggling to take enough air in.

It was highly possible that Emmi was still about to die.

Next the blindfold, and it dragged over the cuts on her face as it was removed. The panic set in again. The blindfold was gone but Emmi still couldn’t see no matter how hard she tried. She was blind, or her eyes were gone entirely. They had cut them out of her sometime after she had passed out, or―

“Go get me some water,” the voice instructs. “And an extra shirt or something.” The hands on her shoulders were gentle but she could feel herself hyperventilating even as she tried to sink her teeth into her own lip, trying to quell the feeling.

“Hey, you’re safe now. We’ve got you. Just try to breathe.”

It wasn’t possible. Emmi was hallucinating, or dead already if Logan had been kind enough to let her go so easily.

She had to be.

Skidding footsteps returned to them sooner rather than later and she tried to hold her breath, even out her heart-rate, to little avail. Something wipes over her face - damp and cool, pressing gently against her eyes.

“Try now.”

Emmi blinks. A few times at first and then frantically. Her vision is tinged a multitude of colors - pinks and reds and dusty browns and  _ oh.  _ She can see again.

Which means it was all blood.

“Hey,” the voice says. She looks - actually  _ looks _ , and nearly chokes on a sob. Icarus is crouched in the dirt in front of her, Ria right next to her, and somehow this is real. The concern on Ria’s face is one thing, but with Icarus it’s almost laughable. If only she had the strength to do that.

All she can do is stare. And then, alarmingly, the sob finally breaks free.

Icarus too looks equally alarmed. Ria puts a hand on her arm, so gentle that her heart twists along with her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t―”

“Stop apologizing,” Icarus orders. God, why is she  _ crying.  _ It all feels like such a vicious cycle she’s not sure if there’s another option.

Can this really be the rest of her life?

She doesn’t know how her face ends up buried in his shoulder, if she slumps there herself or if he guides her. Ria’s hand tightens on her arm, thumb soothing back on forth. It’s not long before there are two more presences - one by her side, and another that drops down behind her back before a hand wraps around her left elbow.

“Stay still,” Soran instructs. She squeezes her eyes shut at the sound of his voice, too. “I’m gonna cut these off.”

The feeling of a blade against her skin is nearly enough to send her running, if she even could, the tightness around her elbows increasing as he saws through the multitude of ropes. The blood rushes back down the second they fall away. She hears more than feels Soran stand back up, the pins and needles too intense to feel much else.

“Make sure there’s nothing serious I need to deal with right away,” he suggests. “I need to get rid of the bodies.”

_ Bodies.  _ Emmi blinks, but with her face mashed into Icarus’ shoulder she can’t see much of anything. “We need to leave, period!” Tarquin calls after him. The volume of his voice makes her whole body flinch and he curls a hand around her shoulder in response. “Not a good look to be next to a crash-site like this!”

_ Crash-site… _

Emmi lifts her head up. The light stings her eyes, but not well enough that she can’t make out the smoking hull of the car, or what’s left of it. It lays on its side in the dirt, right side completely buckled in. There are sprays of blood all over the side of it. Certainly no signs of life.

“Is this real?” she croaks. It doesn’t seem like it can be.

All three of them nod, though, almost in unison. It’s so strange that finally a laugh almost escapes.

Tarquin leans forward, poking and prodding at her, down her legs and back to her arms. Checking for signs of anything worse than what he can see. That’s what Soran meant.

Because he can fix her.

“Fuck,” she whispers. There’s nothing else more than that. Ria gives her a sage nod at that, finally in agreement on something she never understood before.

Simply,  _ fuck. _

“Can you walk?” Tarquin asks. “We need to get out of here, and then we’ll fix everything.”

Emmi has no idea, but she nods. It feels like a group effort, Emmi at the certain of it, as they pull her up, until her trembling legs are somehow holding her. It feels like the world around her should be on fire, or in the very least that she should be burning, and yet…

She’s alive?

She’s alive.

It’s over.

―

The diner slash rest-stop slash oddly placed gas station is one of the most tragic things Icarus has ever seen in his life.

Unfortunately, it’s not. Something higher on the list is currently in the car next to him.

Emmi’s eyes aren’t just dead. They’re beyond that. She’s vacated to a place nicer than the one she’s currently in. Not exactly high standards judging by the look of her right now, but she’s found it, and she’s staying there.

At least until they pull into the parking lot. Soran bumps over the curb so fast it shakes every single one of them, and Emmi’s hollow eyes spark back to life, if only for a second.

“Go to the bathroom,” Soran says. It’s difficult to ascertain who he’s speaking to, but Icarus is the first to open the door and step out. Without taking her eyes off the floor Emmi shuffles over to him at her own speed until he’s able to grab a hold of her arm, gently pulling her to her feet.

The bathroom it is.

The outer one is a single room attached to the outside of the diner, dank and complete with a single flickering overhead light. He holds the door while everyone else files in after them, and only once everyone is safely tucked in does he lock it tight, trapping them all.

Emmi has found a seat on the closed toilet lid, fingers twitching, knee bouncing incessantly. She refuses to look up at any of them.

For a long while, no one dares to speak. Tarquin is the first to properly move, rummaging through the bag he drops to the floor, occasionally placing a few items on the sink’s edge. Fresh clothes, by the looks of it. A comb and a toothbrush. An extra pair of shoes.

Icarus is still clutching onto the extra shirt Ria got him, damp with water. Eventually he crouches down in front of her yet again. At this angle, it’s nearly impossible for her  _ not  _ to look at him.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she says, voice hardly a rasp. “I’m good.”

She is most definitely not good.

“Don’t even bother,” Soran interrupts, crouching down by his side likewise. “Just let me deal with it.”

Before he can grab a hold of her arm Emmi grabs him back, fingers tight. “Are you sure they’re all dead?” she asks. She hadn’t actually seen the bodies. It hadn’t been intentional, but none of them had let her. They had just packed her up in the car and off they went.

“Hundred percent,” Soran confirms. “You don’t have to worry about them.”

Good riddance for that. If  _ Icarus  _ doesn’t have to deal with any of those lot ever again it will still be too soon.

With that Icarus backs up and lets Soran do whatever it is he’s doing, really, watching his shaking hands. He’s past exhaustion at this point, and Emmi’s grip on his arm is matching that. It doesn’t even look like she’s aware of it. Everyone is holding on by just a thread and at any moment it’s like to snap.

A few short days ago, once he had realized Soran was going to live, Icarus had thought he was the one closest to the edge.

How much can change in that span of time.

When he had gotten Emmi out of the trunk Icarus had thought nothing of it. He just had to get her out. He wasn’t worried about his hands or what he could do to her. The purpose had over-ridden any sense of fear he might be harboring within himself.

Again, things change. Or maybe that sense of awfulness only applies when his hands itch to reach out for Soran.

“What are we doing now?” Tarquin asks.

“You should all just… go home,” Ria says carefully. “You don’t deserve to deal with any of this.” She’s still lingering by the door, arms wrapped tight around herself. A feeling he’s sure they all understand.

Much to his surprise, it’s Emmi that scoffs. “And have  _ this _ ,” she says, jabbing a finger towards her face. “Be for nothing? No, we need to find it.”

He’s been trying not to linger on her face for too long, the mottled bruises and slashes they cut open across her skin.

At least now, though, there’s a flicker of rage in her eyes.

Rage they can work with.

“So what do you want to do, then?” Icarus asks. “Up to you.”

Her face is still a wreck, evidence of the breakdown she had on him whilst they were still sitting in the dirt. The state of her had alarmed him, of course, but the tears more-so than anything else.

He had held her because he knew what happened if he didn’t; the same thing would have happened to him if Soran hadn’t so adamantly followed him out of those ruins.

Emmi sighs, wringing her hands together. When she looks up at the ceiling he can see fresh tears in her eyes, though she doesn’t allow them to spill over.

“Right now, I just want to eat something, maybe, and sit until I can process this,” she says. “And then we can figure the rest out. Is that good enough?”

One by one, they all nod. As if there was any doubt; no one is going to try and refute her. If Emmi needs to sit and process, then that’s what they’ll do. Besides, Icarus could use some of that himself, and he’s sure the others are in much the same boat. A little bit of breathing room won’t kill anyone.

It might just help.

“Next door, then?” Soran asks. “See how long it takes for them to look at us and call the cops.”

Emmi gets to her feet using the wall as a support, wincing. “Why not?”

What a disaster they all are, and even disaster doesn’t seem like a strong enough word. It has long since passed that point.

In the very least, they’re all together. A few days ago that no longer seemed like a possibility. He was off wandering and people were picking fights and Ria had blood all over her hands, truly one of the strangest images his brain is clinging onto.

He’s back, though. Emmi is alright, relatively speaking, and they’re all alive.

And yeah, she’s right.

Food does sound good right about now.

―

Ria chooses the furthest corner booth and wills herself to disappear into it.

Soran all but forced them to anyway. He’s still standing at the main counter with seemingly the only employee around in the dead of night.

Emmi still looks a wreck, and Tarquin’s face is yet to resemble full normalcy. She could have talked, but she would rather die, honestly, and Icarus hadn’t put up a fight about it either. So to the booth they go, in silence, feet dragging, and Tarquin ushers her into the very back of it and then Emmi after her.

Ria forces her knees up despite the lack of space, wrapping her arms tight around them. She’s trying to not think about anything too much. It’s a careful process. Every time her thoughts begin to wander she has to pull them back, extract the good from a bad.

Everyone else seems to be finding more success than her. Emmi has it mastered, that empty stare. Right now she’s aimed it at the plastic container full of sugar packets off to their left. Tarquin has plucked one out and is moving it across the table with a finger, each back and forth motion something that Icarus watches carefully, nothing better to do.

As if something so trivial can be so entertaining.

Soran approaches the table with his arms full of drinks, sloshing some over his arm as he struggles to place them all on the table mostly intact. “Ordered half the menu. Don’t ask me what. I already forgot.”

Shadows have formed under his eyes as if placed there by magic, each punctuated blink slower and slower. When he sits down his whole body gives way and slumps over onto the table, head pillowed on his folded arms.

“Just close your eyes for a while,” Icarus says, a plea woven in his voice.

“Don’t fucking want to,” Soran mutters, sounding more like a petulant child than she’s heard recently, over maybe ever. “It’s never safe to close your eyes in public.”

“Well, we’re here. You  _ are  _ safe.”

Ria is no longer sure of the truth behind the statement. She feels the weight of the tree branch in her hand, sees the scabs rapidly forming over Emmi’s face.

There is no safety out here.

Tarquin leans over the table some and takes the sugar packet with him. “It’s not safe to pass out in public, either, but that’s what you’re going to do if you don’t go to sleep.”

“Shut up,” Soran reminds. “Don’t make me punch you again.”

Of everything said in the past while, that’s what makes Emmi react. It’s slow. She blinks a few times, rolls her head to look between them both. “ _ Again?”  _ she asks, eyebrows furrowing together.

“He started it,” Tarquin blurts out. There’s a muffled noise of complaint from the entrapment of Soran’s arms, but nothing else follows. Emmi rolls her head back against the booth, flyaway hairs tickling against Ria’s neck as she fixates her eyes on the ceiling.

“I can’t leave anyone alone,” she realizes. “Not for five minutes.”

If only she knew the full stories. Soran and Tarquin went at it, sure, but Emmi got taken and Ria  _ killed someone. _

Not just someone. A friend.

She shouldn’t have allowed herself to think about it. Bile rises in her throat and she swallows, eyes stinging. Underneath the table a foot presses up against hers, but Tarquin is still looking at that silly sugar packet.

It’s not something that should be comforting.

Lessons in human contact have been weighing on her. If Tarquin  _ hadn’t  _ hugged her when he did, Ria isn’t sure where she’d be right now; possibly in pieces all over the ground, some of them in Kyrenic’s blood. The phantom sight of it still lingers on the front of her sweater and in the grooves of her hands.

Even now, though, as his foot nudges up against hers, something in her settles, or at least tries to.

It’s a reminder that she’s grounded. No longer is she lost up in the sky.

Ria listens to the distant sizzling and pair of voices in the kitchen. Quiet conversation is exchanged around her, floating in one ear and out the other. When the waitress finally approaches with a heavy tray over her shoulder she looks undoubtedly suspicious, focusing on Emmi’s face first and then Tarquin’s, eventually turning to what Ria suspects is Soran fast asleep on the table. Out like a light.

She looks at Ria, too, but her face changes. Something in it almost… settles as she begins to drop baskets over the table.

As if what she’s looking at is normal.

Ria forces a smile on her face before the woman leaves. She can’t even get hungry, but for the sake of normalcy she can fake it.

Everyone falls on the food like ravenous wolves. Everyone except for Soran, that is, and no matter how long she stares he doesn’t move. Not a twitch, even, as Icarus lays a careful hand on his back.

“Just let him sleep,” Tarquin recommends, dragging one of the baskets closer. “He needs that more than food.”

Apparently so.

“If he’s that exhausted, he shouldn’t have done it,” Emmi says around whatever odd thing her mouth is currently working through, gesturing to herself. As if he was just going to leave her to suffer. None of them would if they had a choice.

Ria plucks a fry from Emmi’s basket and munches on it, watching everyone inhale food like it’s their last meal. It’s good that they can do this. Everyone needed this break more than anything.

“Anyone else have information I should know?” Emmi asks. Some of the life is gradually returning to her face.

Tarquin looks at Ria. She takes another fry and stares at it a healthy amount.

“What about you, Human Torch?” Emmi presses. Her eyes are on Icarus, obviously. Thank God for that. “Any new developments we should know about?”

Icarus carefully retracts his hand from Soran’s back. “Nothing that I know of.”

“Want us to take you back to that crater and find out?”

“Not in the slightest,” he responds, artificial cheer heavy on his tongue. Ria doesn’t think that would end well. That place was bad for him, for whatever reason. Something was undeniably wrong with it and it triggered the explosion.

Ria isn’t sure what it is about that statement that sets off something in her brain, like the lighting of a match.

It turns over again and again. The crater. The trigger.

The ability to unlock everything inside yourself from one little object.

She blinks, owl-eyed, until Tarquin’s foot nudges her once again, sharper this time. He raises an eyebrow when she looks up. Icarus and Emmi are still talking away next to them as if nothing is wrong.

Maybe, for once, nothing is.

Ria has it now.

“The crater,” she whispers. The other conversation simmers out.

“The crater,” Tarquin echoes. “What about it?”

“He said it was underground,” she murmurs. It doesn’t seem real and yet it’s the explanation that makes the most sense.

“Who said what was underground, exactly?” Emmi asks. Ria can’t get into it, not right now. All of the work she’s been putting in to think of other things cannot be ruined, especially not right now.

“You… you think it’s there,” Tarquin says quietly. Not so much a question as it is a statement.

It almost sounds like he believes it too.

It all adds up. They didn’t really  _ look _ ; more pressing matters at hand had seen to that. The sudden emergence of unexpected powers so strong that they nearly killed someone, the uneasiness she felt even before everything  _ happened.  _ The wind, too, stinging her eyes - had that been an unknown side-effect of Tarquin as whatever hidden below the crater tried to take control of him, too?

There simply was nothing else that existed in Ria’s mind anymore.

“It’s there,” she says. Never in her life has confident been a word she could apply to herself. Not until now, anyway.

But Ria is sure. She’s never been more sure in her entire life.

Their answer has finally arrived.


	11. The Kingdom Will Fall

**Saturday, July 8th.  
** **Twenty-one days after.**

* * *

Icarus has never wanted to do something less in his life.

He’s sure he’s the only one in the car right vehemently against the idea, for good reason. To him it doesn’t  _ matter  _ how certain Ria is - he doesn’t want to go regardless.

Especially after what happened last time.

Too little, too late. Any concerns he expressed fell on deaf ears. In the diner, in the parking lot outside, when someone finally forced him in the car. Rationally speaking Icarus knows they have to go, especially if this thing really is there, but that doesn’t mean his opinion on the matter is going to change.

Their refusal to leave him where he is cannot be a good move for anyone. What if he loses it again? What if this time someone is a second too late in stopping it?

The first one nearly destroyed him. The possibility of a second, or a third, even a fourth - those could take him out for good.

At least now everyone seems focused on themselves. Emmi snuck half of their picked through food out of the restaurant in a bag and is sharing it with Soran, who adamantly refused to let anyone drive even though he only slept for a half hour, tops. On a table-top, no less. The night-time has made him difficult to read, each plane and shadowy dip of his face blending into one, but you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the exhaustion in it.

Behind Icarus’ chair he can hear Tarquin tapping away on his phone, looking into possible mine tunnels in the area. Icarus has yet to really recognize anything around him; he could blame it on the darkness, but he knows the truth. The first time he was out here he was just frankly too out of his mind. Every part of the landscape around him had been a blur, a desert mirage.

He can see it in the distance, the crater’s edge rising up into the sky. Just a few more minutes.

He doesn’t think he can do this.

“I can’t do this,” he says aloud. Emmi reaches around his seat and tries to shove a cold fry into his mouth, successfully.

At least it seems like she’s feeling a bit better.

“Don’t have a choice,” Soran reminds him. God, even his voice sounds off. How he wishes that they could just all go to sleep and pretend this wasn’t happening.

“Just drop me here,” he pleads. “I won’t move. I’ll wait until you guys come back.”

If anything, in response it seems like Soran presses down harder on the gas. Of course he does.

“Please?” he tries again.

“You’re not staying here.”

“Why not?”

Emmi leans forward between their seats. “Just so we’re clear, I’m even  _ less  _ in the mood to deal with your lover’s quarrels than I usually am.”

“We’re not,” Soran clarifies. It certainly seems like that’s what they’re doing, or in the very least they’re headed in that direction. If it would make Soran leave him here, he might just have to. Arguing with Soran has never gotten him anywhere before, but it’s worth trying. Better than nearly ending his life again.

“You know ―”

“What do I know?” Soran asks.

“Let me finish,” he insists. “If something happens to you again, or  _ anyone  _ for that matter, you’re not strong enough to fix it. Don’t argue with me. You know you’re not.”

There are a whole chorus of sighs from the back-seat. The hilly approach to the parking lot at the crater’s very top edge grows ever closer.

“So don’t hurt anyone, then,” Soran says simply, as if that’s all there is to it. That is reserved for people with control over themselves, and Icarus is decidedly not one of those people. Oh, how he wishes he was. Wouldn’t their whole journey here have been better if he was?

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“How do you know? It took control over you  _ once _ , that doesn’t mean you can’t fight back. It’s  _ your  _ power. It’s up to you to decide how it goes.”

“Can I even do that?” he asks, but the responses end there. When it comes down to it, him controlling… whatever this even  _ is  _ falls on his shoulders and no one else.

The stony, silent expression on Soran’s face is enough. His preoccupation on the road is the only thing at the forefront of his mind.

Icarus lowers his head onto his knees and draws as much breath in as he possibly can. Already he’s feeling nauseous. It could be that feeling coming back again, so similar to the first time. It could also be that he’s just making it worse simply through speculation. The anxiety behind the possibility of it all coming to fruition again is enough to make him sick.

There’s discussion in the back-seat about where to look and what they could find but Icarus tunes it all out and listens to his heart thunder in his chest. It feels like heat-stroke, coming back all over again. Sweat gathers at the base of his neck and in his palms when he clenches them together. Again. It’s happening  _ again. _

He really wishes it wouldn’t.

The car comes to an abrupt stop. They’ve arrived. Icarus wedges his head down between his knees, finally, breath whistling on the exhale. No wonder he lost it last time.

Everyone shuffles over and out. Maybe they’ll leave him. If they’re smart, they will.

Not a moment later his door swings open, and he winces at the sudden heat, trying to chase the chill of air conditioning from his arms.

“I’ll drag you if you don’t get up,” Soran says.

“You won’t.”

“You wanna bet?”

“Why are you so eager to bring me with you after what happened last time?” he wheezes, turning his head to the side. Much to his surprise Soran is crouched next to him. His eyes aren’t nervous, or wary, or hesitant.

He looks more resolute than Icarus knows he himself will be ever in his life.

“I’m more eager to prove you wrong,” Soran says, shifting on his feet.

“What makes you think you can?”

He shrugs. “Call it intuition. You don’t want me dead.”

“I didn’t want you dead last time, either.” They seem to keep ending up in these life or death situations, struggling to control the outcome like an unbalanced game of tug-of-war.

Soran inches forward and wraps his hand around his arm, but doesn’t pull him forward just yet. “Remember what I said about the intent?” he asks. “Your hands can do whatever they want but your mind is still yours. You lost it one time. Almost everyone does. That doesn’t mean you’ll do it again.”

His attempt at comfort is alien in the truest sense of the word, almost more than Ria ever has been. Somehow it’s working. The person who took the brunt of it, the one who came after him in the end, and he’s trying to make sure  _ Icarus  _ is okay.

As if he didn’t nearly die for it once already.

“Your death wish gets more and more unnerving to me by the day,” he informs him, letting his feet shift out of the car. 

“Not so much a death wish as a desire to be right,” Soran reminds him. “And I think the odds are in my favor with that one.”

So much confidence lies behind that statement. His grip tightens around Icarus’ elbows as he pulls him out and up. For now, just this second, Icarus feels comfortable enough to wrap his arms around him. It’s going to be the last time for a little bit here; no matter how much discomfort he feels in their current journey, he can’t reach out like this.

He’s too much of a risk. A walking, talking, sort-of breathing hazard.

“We’ll be fine,” Soran says. Not something he could have imagined coming out of his mouth until day, but stranger things have happened.

He’s witnessed them. Been side by side of them. Had the misfortune to cause them.

Icarus pulls back, or at least tries to, but Soran keeps a firm hold on him for another moment longer and then finally takes his hand when they separate. The others, not so far in the distance, have left them.

He feels sick, but nothing has yet happened. Even as Soran pulls him off after them, he doesn’t let go of his hand.

And if that’s not trust, he doesn’t know what it is.

―

“Do you feel anything?” Tarquin asks, chancing his first glance of many down at Ria beside him.

Her eyes are wide and searching, almost comically so. It gives her a healthy dose of that innocence she had been missing for the past day. Already it seems like it’s been months, and just last night he stumbled across her, blood all over her hands.

That memory for them both has been erased in the possibility of something great, the answer to a question Tarquin thought they may never get.

Well, maybe. Better not to jinx it.

“I feel a lot of things.” Ria hesitates, fingers fiddling with the end of her sweater. At least this one doesn’t have any great spray of blood all over the front of it.

Tarquin really ought to burn that one when he has a spare minute.

“Tell me,” he urges, taking a look around. “But first - in or out?”

The internet was no great help, for once. Tarquin did his damnedest to find anything about such suspicious holes in the ground that could lead them to their prize. Mentions, sure, but concrete information is about as rare as the thing itself,and almost as hard to find in the first place.

The crater looks even more imposing in the dark. The bottom is nothing more than a black out, the outer rims shadowed to appear as nothing more than a harsh plunge.

“In,” Ria decides. “I think.”

“Don’t doubt yourself. I’m following you.”

Even when they find it, Tarquin has no idea what he’ll feel. He can’t even pinpoint that exact emotion right now. Is he happy? Confused? Worried.

Ria looks up at him, chin dipping in a slight nod. Her first few steps down into the crater are careful and pre-planned.

Tarquin lets her go while Emmi steps to her side after lagging behind the entire day. Icarus is still dragging on behind them, though he suspects that’s more general anxiety than real exhaustion. Emmi looks like she could sit down at his feet and go to sleep.

“You can go sit in the car,” he offers. Shoulders bowed, cuts likened to thin, dark marks, she looks like a statue hit one too many times, seconds away from shattering under one last, powerful hit.

“I’d rather go underground with you idiots than sit up there alone.” She swallows. His stupid suggestion overwhelms him immediately. Of  _ course  _ she wouldn’t want to be alone. The last time she was people took her away and cut into her, would have likely killed her within a day or two if Tarquin hadn’t gotten collected.

He offers an arm up and Emmi slips under it silently, tucked under his shoulder.

Some of the tension deflates from them both.

“Are we just letting her go?” Soran asks, struggling his way up to the top next to them. The exhaustion is clearly getting to him, as well as pulling Icarus along despite his willingness to be pulled.

“I was letting her pick,” he tells them. It looks like it’s working, too. Ria is choosing a haphazard, chaotic path down into the crater, zig-zagging this way and that with no purpose in mind. She’s just looking ahead, though, feet letting her carry wherever her brain wants her to go.

He watches her go for a moment before he steps after her, taking Emmi down with him. All they can do now is follow and hope.

Which is what he’s already been doing, to be honest.

Hope and him had a complicated, undefined relationship. He hardly knew the definition of the world. It was too fragile to hold onto, too fleeting to ever stay. If anything it was a dream, something he could hope to obtain but never properly grab onto. With all of this happening around him it felt further than ever… but what if they could get rid of it?

He could go home to stay. Never have to run again. Actually be able to forge a real life, one he hasn’t had in centuries.

It all sounds too good to be true, but God does he want it.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Emmi asks, startling him out of his thoughts. She’s still up against his side, enough for him to feel her unsteadiness in the silky hand.

Tarquin tightens his arm, just a bit. “Too much.”

“Do enlighten me. I need something else to think about.”

He glances over his shoulder. Soran and Icarus are lagging behind once again, but they’re talking in the very least, and no one has died yet. What a vast improvement from last time.

He keeps one ear open in their direction regardless. “Once this is all over…”

“You think this is going to be over one day?” she asks.

“Idealism is a virtue.”

She scoffs. “It is  _ not.  _ An actual virtue, for your information? Prudence. You know, listening to a voice of reason instead of your delusions or dim-witted brain?”

“Did you just call me stupid?” she asks. Emmi gives him a sunny stupid, oddly bright for this time of night, and even weirder plastered on her battered face. He appreciates it, though. Smiling is good for her.

It would be good for all of them if they could manage to.

He tries to hold that thought close as Ria finally eclipses the very bottom of the crater, spinning in a wide circle. It’s difficult to tell what she’s thinking when he’s not very close.

Her actions, though, speak much louder words. She ends up in one direction, facing away from them and slightly to the left before she takes off. Not quite a run but so much faster than before. His feet hit the rocky bottom as hers finish carrying her all the way to the other side, where the rocky sides are too jagged to properly climb either up or down.

“She’s got something,” Soran says, just as Tarquin thinks it, and he drags Icarus around them and after her just as quickly.

It’s actually happening.

He tries to slow himself for Emmi’s sake but even she’s quick to hurry after them, eventually tearing free from his grasp. He’s the last one there. Ria has practically disappeared, a large jut-out of red-brown rock and dirt hiding her from view, but she’s finally visible as he meets the rest of them. Scrambled another ten or fifteen up she’s flat on her belly, looking at something he can’t see.

No one else fights him to get close. Ria looks up at him yet again.

There’s a long crevice in the span between where two rocks join, hardly visible. Barely wide enough to fit through even if he brings everything in.

He crouches down next to her, hand brushing over it. It doesn’t even look like anything. There’s no drop-off, no steep slope to climb down into it.

Just inky black  _ nothingness. _

“Oh, fuck no,” Emmi says flatly, unimpressed. “I am not going down there. I am not some dumb white person in a horror movie asking for it, thank you very much. That’s his job.” She jabs a figure at Icarus, who sticks his tongue out at her.

He’s glad they’re holding onto some semblance of normalcy.

Ria is still looking at him though, something desperate in her eyes. He wished to know what she feels.

And this must be it.

“I’ll go,” he offers. He takes the staff off his back and places it into her arms, shuffling to the edge of the hole. His feet swing into the darkness, into nothing. There’s no ground. Who knows how long of a drop it is.

He could break his legs, or snap his neck. Die, even.

He doesn’t want to do it anymore than the rest of them.

Inch by inch he wedges himself through the gap until he’s half through. Tarquin turns onto his stomach and lets himself drop through the rest of the way in until only his fingers are stopping him from a precarious fall.

The ground still isn’t there.

Ria looks nervous. “Maybe you should…”

Tarquin lets himself go.

There’s a very alarmed noise, someone’s shocked voice. About ten feet later, if that, he slams into the ground, the shock reverberating all the way up his legs and into his back as he sprawls out onto the ground.

“Tarquin!”

“Ow,” he manages, sitting up. He can see a sliver of Ria’s worried face peeking in. “I’m good!” he calls, waving a hand wildly, though he doesn’t think they can see him. “It’s not far!”

There’s hesitation, clearly. No one immediately drops after him.

It’s easy to see, or not, why.

Tarquin stands up, brushing his hands off. It’s impossible to see; the moonlight is doing nothing beyond a foot in front of his face. It certainly  _ appears  _ to be the ruins of a mine-shaft; ancient rails embedded into the dusty floor that disappear beyond his range of vision, wooden beams jutting out of the ceiling. A project abruptly stopped when they realized they hit the crater’s edge, abandoned when they turned back to look for brighter prospects.

After that, he has no idea.

Something else hits him though, like a tidal wave.

The dread.

His body instantly recoils from going any further - his brain tells him to climb back up. There are enough handholds in the rocky wall to do so. Everything in him gives an odd, inaptly timed shake.

It’s almost enough to knock him flat. He feels sick looking into this unknown when he’s done it a hundred of times, but this....

This is so much worse.

There’s a thud behind him, and a few muffled swears from Soran’s end as he becomes rapidly acquainted with the ground. A moment later he feels the staff tap him in-between the shoulders before Soran too falls still.

“You feel it too,” he whispers. He didn’t think anything could feel so wrong. “We shouldn’t be down here.

Even Soran right beside him is almost entirely lost to the darkness. “Which means we’re in the right place.”

That’s exactly what he  _ didn’t  _ want to hear. Soran’s right. Ria was right.

He backs up out of the tunnel for as long as he damn well can, looking up at Ria’s face still peering at him. “Come on!”

No matter how wrong it feels, they’re right, which means his hope is closer than ever.

Tarquin will get through it for that alone.

―

The strangest feeling overcomes Ria’s entire body.

All of the heaviness and uneasiness she had felt over the course of the previous days floats away on the breeze, even though the air in the mineshaft is almost  _ painfully  _ still.

Her stomach had been a rolling knot of nerves when she descended into the darkness, but now, standing here…

Something had changed.

Particles of moonlight hung above her head, suspended, and she felt lost in them, light as a feather. It almost felt as if they were enough to carry her to wherever this thing was so that she could get out as quickly as possible.

Almost.

“So we’re just supposed to… walk aimlessly until we find it?” Emmi asks, skepticism obvious.

“I think so,”she responds in a murmur, laying her hand against the tunnel wall. It’s cool to the touch, flecks of dirt staining her palm.

Better than blood.

When no one moves, she realizes they’re all looking her way. Waiting, it seems, for her to go. Some of the trepidation returns when she’s staring into the yawning black mouth of the tunnel with no one in front of her to lead the way.

This is her job, the reason they all came out here. Her words led them here.

The bravery inside her gathers, small as the pool is. She can do this. She has to.

Here goes nothing.

In the very least everyone shuffles after her. She takes careful, precise steps over the first few tracks in the ground, glimmering with the moonlight, but soon that is gone as well and she’s relying on instinct alone, feet and hands bumping out before she moves to make sure she’s still steady.

Ria has no idea who’s behind her, what’s in front of her, where she’s going. All there is to rely on is the feeling, the same one that had her making her way across the crater’s floor in the first place. It’s still there in the pit of her stomach, as harsh as it feels. As long as it’s worth following she’ll continue to do so.

The wall she’s following curves left and then opens into a slightly wider cavern with three different totals. Ria allows no room to doubt herself, choosing the first one her instincts point her down. This one is smaller and more cramped - the ceiling is only a few inches above Ria’s head, so she can’t imagine how the others are faring. With the reduction in size comes further darkness. Suddenly she can no longer see her own hand, the stretch of her arm, not even her feet below her.

Emmi starts humming. Ria doesn’t exactly blame her.

“Of all the ways to die…”

Soran’s trail off echoes far down the tunnel in front of her. In terms of the worst of them it’s probably not the most painful - definitely up there with most disturbing though. Lost in the dark, unable to see it coming. You’d be dead before you even knew it was happening.

That thought is still bouncing around in her brain when the floor gives away under her next step.

Ria goes down with an undignified shriek. A beam  _ cracks  _ and then another quickly follows suit, and then there’s nothing below her but air.

She slams into the ground with enough force to drive the breath from her body, instinctively curling up to lessen the shock. Up above someone is shouting her name over and over. Her head is ringing a fair but, but when she stretches out everything feels intact.

“Ria!”

She raises a shaky hands up before she realizes they can’t see her, or her them. Dirt is showering down on her from their tramping feet.

It’s black. She feels hard-packed dirt walls and more beams but nothing of any sustenance. They’re not far, but Ria is alone down here.

For the first time, a miracle really, she feels actual panic claw its way up her throat.

“ _ Ria!” _

Breathe. She needs to breathe. She’s okay. Sore, but alive, and fell no further than Tarquin did in the first palace. She grabs the first beam her fingers lock around and begins to pull herself to her feet.

It’s over more quickly than she even could have thought.

A sudden eruption of light makes her shriek again and she stumbles back to the floor, landing hard once again. This time she isn’t the only one. There’s an entire symphony of shrieks and shouts alive from up above her and she winces, back driving up against the wall.

She stills herself, squints her eyes. The entirety of the cavern is bathed in brilliant white light, and the hole that she tumbled through above her head is suddenly visible, but so is Icarus, and his hands…

Oh God, his hands.  _ Again. _

They’re glowing the same as before, as bright as twin stars. It’s different, though. They’re held out in front of him, trembling, but his position besides that is almost statuesque. His eyes look clear.

The voices above her are ringing loud and clear. The alarm most of all.

Ria gets to her feet once again. He’s taking up most of the space to look down on her, a beacon in the darkness that floats through both the cavern she fell into and the tunnel above in every direction.

She can  _ see. _

“I panicked,” he manages weakly. They all did, by the looks of it, but his panic turned into actual reaction and  _ did something.  _ He’s still with them, too.

Finally a win.

“Don’t you dare touch anything,” she hears Emmi snap. “If you burn this place down around us―”

“Got it.”

She looks up at him. Gives him a thumbs-up that for once someone can actually see. A shaky smile is her response.

Good enough for her.

Soran skirts carefully around him, trying to look down at her without stumbling in himself. “You good?” he asks. His look is mostly unsuccessful. Ria nods before turning around, spinning in a low circle. The cavern isn’t even that big. There’s only one tunnel leading away from it and it’s partially collapsed, impassable even to the smallest person.

Something else is there though, too. The faintest pin-prick of light, something she would have attributed to the spinning of her head or the stars dancing behind her eyes

Someone calls after her when she takes a few steps out of view towards the tunnel, picking her way carefully over the rubble. The dot grows a bit bigger. That unknown, sickening feeling in her stomach pulls harder.

She steps over the first beam into the tunnel, ducks under a second. The dot becomes a streak. It’s  _ blue. _

Blue as her eyes.

“Ria?” Someone asks behind her. They may have even dropped down into the cavern. She only has eyes for whatever she’s headed towards as she pulls herself through the last of the broken beams.

It’s embedded in the last wall, covered by years of dirt and rock. She draws her sleeve over her hand and brushes over it; more dirt showers over her feet, but it’s hard to look away from it. Her prize.

Around the edges it looks like a jagged piece of rock and metal about the size of her palm, almost the size of a lightning bolt. The center is what gets her. It’s that blue that she’s come to know so intimately, what’s always looked back at her, but a thousand different shades of it in the same beat. All of them shimmer together like the deepest blue of the galaxy, faint symbols overlaid together and criss-crossing the entire object.

It’s so small it could fit in one hand, a mere fragment of something so much bigger. So much nothing for such an important thing.

Ria doesn’t realize she’s not breathing until Soran’s feet finish scraping up behind her, or as he slams into one of the beams he fails to properly duck under. “Um,” he says flatly, eyes landing on the wall. “I think that might be it.”

Yeah. Just maybe.

Ria reaches forward and carves around the shard until it shifts free from the wall and lands in her covered palms. Even not totally connected to it she feels the surge of energy throughout her body. It begins to pulsate like a heartbeat, buzzing almost as if it’s  _ alive. _

It doesn’t feel real.

“Fuck me,” Soran says. He actually sounds mildly  _ impressed.  _ “I was really beginning to think―”

“I know,” she whispers. She was losing hope. Not having much of it to begin with hadn’t helped either.

But it was here, she had found it, and it was in her hands.

It was  _ hers. _

“Guess what!” Soran shouts back. “We can go now!”

Many confused mutters follow. A second later the light from Icarus’ hands go out, almost predictably, and she can hear him swearing. At least he sounds like himself.

This little fragment in her hands is still alive, though, emanating a soft blue glow that more than lights the way for her. Soran offers his backpack, the sharp noise of the zipper shaking her senses and jolting her back to reality.

“You can take it, if you want,” he offers. “But… put it away, maybe.”

Ria doesn’t want to, but she nods anyway, gently lowering both her hands and the shard into the bag for safe-keeping, nestling it all the way at the bottom. It’s better this way. For now, at least until they figure something out, this thing is better hidden.

But it’s her. She found it, she has the future.

And she can do right by it.

―

They’re back in the car for all of five minutes when Icarus starts laughing.

Emmi’s talking full-blown, sheer hysteria. She stretches forward between the two front seats to give him a  _ look _ that only causes him to laugh harder.

“What the  _ fuck _ ,” he wheezes eventually. “Did all of that actually happen? We just went wandering around there and I didn’t kill anyone and you just, you just found your stupid thing!” 

He turns around so fast he nearly smashes their heads together. Soran is smiling faintly, she realizes, some of the exhaustion dissipating, and once Icarus turns around and stares at her, Ria starts to smile too.

He left out one important thing. They’re going  _ home.  _ They’re going to be home by the morning.

Emmi swallows away the lump in her throat, leaning back into the seat. Being stuck between them is not ideal, but Tarquin looks bemused to her right and Ria is hugging the backpack to her chest to the left, that same happy smile still plastered on her face.

“We’re going home,” she whispers. Tarquin squeezes her arm.

Home, where Winnie is almost certainly going to try and kill her anyway, but at least it will be worth it. She’s never leaving again.

They’ll figure it out.

Emmi lets her eyes close, trying to settle. Everything still aches, but most of the immediate pain has faded. Her face itching non-stop seems to be her biggest problem now but she keeps still, letting her brain wander elsewhere.

It’s difficult, though. Soran snickers not a minute later - she’s not even sure what about, but the noise alone sends Icarus into a fit again, more uncontrolled laughter bubbling out from his laps.

That should be it, she thinks, but that sets Tarquin off into incredulous, confused laughter, and then even  _ Ria  _ starts chuckling, oh my  _ God _ ―

“You guys are all insane,” she says flatly.

More laughter. Emmi presses her lips together.

“She’s going to crack soon,” Tarquin says, laughing further at Emmi’s sudden assault against his side, jabbing fingers into his ribs.

“ _ Insane _ ,” she repeats. Ria shoves her face forward into the backpack to muffle her own peels of laughter.

Well, she  _ was  _ trying to think of nothing, and these escapades are accomplishing that pretty well. She absolutely isn’t going to laugh though. For her, right now isn’t the time. While it may be nice it’s not something that fits in well with the rest of her current attitude.

A part of her is still stuck in that trunk. Another is in the warehouse with the knife tracing the sharp line of her cheek, gouging in deeper and deeper. The looks in all of their eyes as they hovered over her shifts into one macabre image. That was what evil looked like, hatred in its purest form. She wasn’t a person to them; meant for the slaughterhouse and no more.

When they had shoved her in that trunk she had been afraid that was her last glimpse of daylight ever. They were taking her to her death.

Instead they had driven to theirs.

The last thing any of them had said to her was lost. She thinks it might have been Logan, words uttered in the space between the last few inches of the trunk closing.

More awfulness, she's sure, and words she's thankfully forgotten. They'd be the type to keep her awake at night. When Emmi returns to her bed, to Arwen, she wants to be able to close her eyes and not feel afraid.

Those three are gone as well as the group in the park. The rest can try.

Emmi will be far more vigilant now.

The radio volume suddenly grows in such intensity that Emmi can no longer ignore it. The last of the snickers fade off. It's an odd, out of place tune that takes a moment for her to recognize.

Soran's fingers pause on the dial and then he turns around to look at her. She glowers.

"Really?"

"You were the one that wanted your 70's jam session…"

"Yeah,  _ before _ ," she emphasizes. "What makes you think I want it now?"

Whatever he thinks it seems evident that he doesn't care. He relaxes back behind the wheel, smacks Icarus' hand down when he reaches for one of the dials, and ultimately looks quite pleased with himself through the shadows under his eyes.

"I hate you." Better that he knows, though she's sure it's obvious.

Someone around her is humming along with the tune. She can't tell who and fixes her eyes out the front windshield to try and ignore it.

The song continues. Grows louder.

Alarmingly, Emmi feels her eyes begin to water.

"Fuck me," she whispers. With her eyes closed it's difficult to tell if anyone hears her or looks her way.

There is something inside her that's broken. Especially broken, she knows, if some tune from the seventies, an unemotional one at that, is almost reducing her to tears.

She's so excited to be anywhere but here.

"Alright, ease up," Tarquin says. His hand curls around her arm. Well, someone's noticed. Apparently Emmi isn't so good as to hide her 'about to break down in tears' face.

"I'm good," she manages. Opening her eyes is a mistake - a few tears instantly spill down her cheeks unbidden. 

She can't see much through her swimming vision, but the volume is quickly turned down to a more appropriate level as well as everyone's plentiful humming or quiet singing.

Tarquin rubs a hand down her arm. The tune is still audible in the background, and something about the stupidity of it all threatens to tug her stubborn mouth up into a smile.

She's crying, and smiling now too, and each word of the song is gradually breaking through the unrelenting siren that is her brain.

All she wanted initially and now she's finally getting it.

"Turn it back up," she instructs.

There's nothing better to do.

Soran pauses before he obeys, a sudden sigh escaping him as the truck bumps over a pothole in the road and rattles all over.

"Fuck," he says. "That rental car company is going to kill me."

And Emmi can't help herself - she starts laughing.

―

The kid at the rental car company in the morning is beyond young, beyond tired, and most of all, beyond caring.

Much of Soran’s fabricated story falls on deaf ears. That’s  _ if  _ the kid is even properly awake. He looks as dead as Soran feels, only he has the pleasure to be sitting down while Soran leans over the counter and contemplates falling asleep on it.

Not a good look even though the kid couldn’t care less - about the state of Soran’s sleep schedule, or lack thereof, and definitely not about the car. He gives him a collection of forms to fill out and garbled explanations on numbers to call and where to send said papers once he’s completed them.

And well, Soran will consider it, but really, who cares. It’s just one car.

When he returns to the car everyone else is in varying states of asleep. Enviable, truly. Everyone except Ria had offered to drive for him at some point, though that only worked if he allowed it to happen.

Protests had come adamantly for a long while. He was going to black out eventually whether he wanted to or not - that seemed to be the main argument.

Soran had made it back to San Jose unscathed, though. He could make it another forty-five minutes back home.

Besides, judging by the fact that anyone hardly even  _ stirs  _ when he slams the car door shut and re-starts the ancient thing, he’s not going to be receiving much dissent on that front, if any at all.

Icarus is the only one who’s eyes even open, and it’s long enough to blunder a hand over to grab unsuccessfully at Soran’s arms a few times over before he manages to drag it closer.

What progress that is.

Just a little bit longer, he thinks, and then home will be there, and his bed too. He never knew he could miss a thing so much, but anywhere is better than that nightmarish hotel and the things that live down its abandoned hallways.

He won’t lie, the curiosity is still eating away at him. A fruitless wonder, now. He’s gone, the hotel is far behind him and the only way he ever goes back is under extreme duress, likely dragged by two or more people.

Not even the type of people who would be dragging him would dare set foot in such a place, though, so he’s probably safe.

And that’s good enough for him.

Already being back in a city, even if it’s not his, has eased the unfamiliarity he had been growing accustomed to. The moment San Jose passes and turns into the numerous other smaller towns and cities dotted around the highway he begins to recognize more.

To be able to feel that once again is relieving. More for him than most people. Considering he was almost dead and came close to never seeing this again, well…

It’s a lot.

He didn’t think this place meant much of anything to him. It was just another city, another building, another apartment. A place to lay his head for a while until he got bored of it, or until he bled enough over it that it grew hard to stay in.

Regardless, it was starting to mean something. So long as they could protect it, anyway, they could make it worth fighting for too.

As he soon came to discover, though, easier said than done.

Admittedly, it took him too long to realize how empty the highway was leading into San Francisco. Even emptier than it had been when the city had closed off in the first place. The few cars he does see pull off long before he even comes in sight of the shield encircling the city, and when he finally does he understands.

He makes no conscious decision to let up off the gas, but suddenly the car is stopping right there in the middle of the highway, no interference whatsoever.

There’s no sense in getting out of the car, either, but something in him mistakenly believes the scene will change if he does.

The city tucked away behind its shield appears to be in ruins.

Active fires blaze across even the tallest of buildings, red-orange flames painting the sky even before the dawn does. Smoking buildings nearly hide some of the smaller infernos. Even more of the smoke is billowing up into the sky in great plumes, unable to disperse as they hit the top of the shield and begin to suffocate the little bit of sky there even further.

Soran’s much too far still to make out the little details, but they’re in the back of his mind regardless. Certain bloodshed, the pile-up of bodies, deserted streets and homes alike.

And his home, right in the middle of it.

The air shifts behind him as the scrape of more footsteps becomes audible. “What the  _ fuck _ ?” Icarus breathes, sounding decidedly more awake than he did just a few short minutes ago.

It’s not just him either. His sudden stop on the highway has brought the others out of their rapid-fire hibernation, and every one of them has matching faces. Varying degrees of shock, horror, a sick sense of awe. All of this was happening while they were out gallivanting in the desert, preparing to stop it.

It seems they should have been checking the news. Why was no one doing that, exactly?

“Is this what you meant?” Soran asks. Ria’s face is by far the worst. It’s almost  _ touching  _ when you realize her lack of connection to the place, how easily she could abandon both it and them in one fell swoop.

It would be touching, you know, if the city wasn’t in fucking ruins.

He knows before she even shakes her head what the answer is. The look on her face is enough. Her mouth is agape, jaw practically touching the road beneath her. His backpack is still clutched against her chest but tighter than ever before, as if she fears someone ripping it from her hands in the next few minutes. The worst part is her eyes. Her eyes betray the fear the rest of her body is refusing to display, raw and unadulterated.

This is fear he’s never seen on her face before, and if he’s never seen it, it’s likely no one has.

There’s a first time for everything. Ideally, he was hoping none of those were going to come  _ now. _

“So what now?” Tarquin asks. The golden question, one that’s certainly floating through all of their minds. Soran can come up with an answer for almost everything; doesn’t matter if it’s smart or not. He can think of  _ something. _

Right now, though…. right now he’s got nothing.

None of them do.

All he can do is stare at the city. There’s enough left of it that something is worth saving. They had a plan, an idea to take the fight first, turn it to their advantage.

They’ve already lost that. So what  _ now _ ?

Nothing’s there no matter how hard he tries, and he damn well tries. Maybe it’s the exhaustion. Maybe it’s the shock.

Whatever it is, it’s certainly something.

Apparently they’ve got work to do.


End file.
